Iraq forces fight for militant held Tikrit, bombard city
28 Jun 2014 11:25 PM GMT
Iraqi forces fought for a strategic university campus in Tikrit on Friday and bombarded the city in an effort to retake it from Sunni Arab insurgents threatening to tear the country apart. The military operation came as the top Shiite cleric urged the country’s leaders to unite, after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki conceded political measures are needed to defeat the jihadist-led offensive that has killed more than 1,000 people and overrun major parts of five provinces.
In further fallout from the crisis, the president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region declared there was no going back on Kurdish self-rule in disputed territory, including ethnically divided northern oil city Kirkuk, now defended against the militants by Kurdish fighters.
International agencies meanwhile raised alarm bells over the humanitarian consequences of the fighting, with up to 10,000 people having fled a northern Christian town in recent days and 1.2 million displaced by unrest in Iraq this year. Iraqi forces swooped into Tikrit University by helicopter yesterday, and a police major said that there were periodic clashes on the campus on Friday.
A senior army officer said Iraqi forces were targeting militants in Tikrit with air strikes to protect forces at the university and prepare for an assault on the city.
Troops are deployed in areas around Tikrit for the attack, the officer said. Another senior officer said taking the university is an important step in regaining control of Tikrit, the hometown of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, which Sunni Arab militants seized on 11 June. The military counter-offensive is the latest effort to regain the initiative after security forces wilted in the face of the initial insurgent onslaught, led by jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) but involving other groups as well, which began late on 9 June. Iraqi Kurdish leader Massud Barzani said Baghdad could no longer object to Kurdish self-rule in Kirkuk and other towns from which federal forces withdrew in the face of the militant advance.
‘Now, this (issue) ... is achieved,’ he said, referring to a constitutional article meant to address the Kurds’ decades-old ambition to incorporate the territory in their autonomous region in the north over the objections of successive governments in Baghdad. Speaking at a joint news conference with visiting British Foreign Secretary William Hague, Barzani said: ‘We have been patient for 10 years with the federal government to solve the problems of these (disputed) areas.
‘There were Iraqi forces in these areas, and then there was a security vacuum, and (Kurdish) peshmerga forces went to fill this vacuum.’ Also on Friday, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is revered within the majority Shiite community, urged Iraqi leaders to unite and form a government quickly after parliament convenes on 1 July. Sistani’s remarks echoed those of Hague and US Secretary of State John Kerry, who today was in Jeddah as Washington unveiled a USD 500 million plan to arm and train moderate Syrian Sunni rebels, whom Kerry said could help fight ISIL-led militants. Yesterday, Maliki, who has publicly focused on a military response to the crisis, said political measures were also necessary, ahead of the July 1 opening of the new parliament elected on 30 April.
In further fallout from the crisis, the president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region declared there was no going back on Kurdish self-rule in disputed territory, including ethnically divided northern oil city Kirkuk, now defended against the militants by Kurdish fighters.
International agencies meanwhile raised alarm bells over the humanitarian consequences of the fighting, with up to 10,000 people having fled a northern Christian town in recent days and 1.2 million displaced by unrest in Iraq this year. Iraqi forces swooped into Tikrit University by helicopter yesterday, and a police major said that there were periodic clashes on the campus on Friday.
A senior army officer said Iraqi forces were targeting militants in Tikrit with air strikes to protect forces at the university and prepare for an assault on the city.
Troops are deployed in areas around Tikrit for the attack, the officer said. Another senior officer said taking the university is an important step in regaining control of Tikrit, the hometown of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, which Sunni Arab militants seized on 11 June. The military counter-offensive is the latest effort to regain the initiative after security forces wilted in the face of the initial insurgent onslaught, led by jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) but involving other groups as well, which began late on 9 June. Iraqi Kurdish leader Massud Barzani said Baghdad could no longer object to Kurdish self-rule in Kirkuk and other towns from which federal forces withdrew in the face of the militant advance.
‘Now, this (issue) ... is achieved,’ he said, referring to a constitutional article meant to address the Kurds’ decades-old ambition to incorporate the territory in their autonomous region in the north over the objections of successive governments in Baghdad. Speaking at a joint news conference with visiting British Foreign Secretary William Hague, Barzani said: ‘We have been patient for 10 years with the federal government to solve the problems of these (disputed) areas.
‘There were Iraqi forces in these areas, and then there was a security vacuum, and (Kurdish) peshmerga forces went to fill this vacuum.’ Also on Friday, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is revered within the majority Shiite community, urged Iraqi leaders to unite and form a government quickly after parliament convenes on 1 July. Sistani’s remarks echoed those of Hague and US Secretary of State John Kerry, who today was in Jeddah as Washington unveiled a USD 500 million plan to arm and train moderate Syrian Sunni rebels, whom Kerry said could help fight ISIL-led militants. Yesterday, Maliki, who has publicly focused on a military response to the crisis, said political measures were also necessary, ahead of the July 1 opening of the new parliament elected on 30 April.
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