BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi helicopter gunships struck suspected
insurgent positions in Tikrit on Sunday as part of a government
offensive to retake the predominantly Sunni hometown of former dictator
Saddam Hussein from Sunni militants led by the al-Qaida breakaway
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, residents and officials said.
The
Iraqi military launched its push to wrest back Tikrit, a hotbed of
antipathy toward Iraq’s Shiite-led government, on Saturday with a
multi-pronged assault spearheaded by ground troops backed by tanks and
helicopters. Security officials said the army is coordinating its
campaign with the United States.
Tikrit is one of two major urban
centers that fell to insurgents earlier this month during their
lightning offensive across the country’s north and west.
The
insurgents appeared to have repelled the military’s initial push for
Tikrit, and remained in control of the city on Sunday, but clashes were
taking place in the northern neighborhood of Qadissiyah, two residents
reached by telephone said.
Muhanad Saif al-Din, who lives in the
city center, said he could see smoke rising from Qadissiyah, which
borders the University of Tikrit, where troops brought by helicopter
established a bridgehead two days ago. He said many of the militants in
Tikrit had deployed to the city’s outskirts, apparently to blunt the
military attack.
Military spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi told
reporters Sunday that the military was in full control of the university
and had raised the Iraqi flag over the campus.
"The battle has
several stages. The security forces have cleared most of the areas of
the first stage and we have achieved results," al-Moussawi said. "It is a
matter of time before we declare the total clearing" of Tikrit.
A
provincial official reached by telephone reported clashes northwest of
the city around an air base that previously served as a U.S. military
facility known as Camp Speicher. He spoke on condition of anonymity
because he was not authorized to brief the media.
Jawad al-Bolani,
a security official in the provincial operation command, said the U.S.
was sharing intelligence with Iraq and has played an "essential" role in
the Tikrit offensive.
"The Americans are with us and they are an
important part in the success we are achieving in and around Tikrit,"
al-Bolani told The Associated Press.
Washington has sent 180 of
300 American troops President Barack Obama has promised to help Iraqi
forces. The U.S. is also flying manned and unmanned aircraft on
reconnaissance missions over Iraq.
Meanwhile, a top Iranian
military commander said Tehran was ready to send in any type of military
assistance the Iraqi government forces need, including drones.
"Iran
will never spare any help in any field that Iraq needs, even drones.
… We are waiting to help them, in case Iraqi officials ask," the
deputy head of Iran’s armed forces, Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, told the
Iranian state-run Arabic-language station, Al Alam TV.
None-Arab
and mostly Shiite, Iran has been playing the role of guarantor of
Shiites in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. It has maintained close ties with
successive Shiite-led governments since the 2003 ouster of Saddam
Hussein, a Sunni who oppressed the Shiites.
U.S. officials said
Iran has been flying surveillance drones in Iraq, controlling them from
an airfield in Baghdad. A top Iraqi intelligence official said Iran was
secretly supplying the Iraqi security forces with weapons, including
rockets, heavy machine guns and multiple rocket launchers.
Iraq’s
government is eager to make progress in Tikrit after weeks of
demoralizing defeats at the hands of the Islamic State and its Sunni
allies. The militants’ surge across the vast Sunni-dominated areas that
stretch from Baghdad north and west to the Syrian and Jordanian borders
has thrown Iraq into its deepest crisis since U.S. troops withdrew in
December 2011.
More ominously, the insurgent blitz, which prompted
Kurdish forces to assert long-held claims over disputed territory, has
raised the prospect of Iraq being split in three, along sectarian and
ethnic lines.
For embattled Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki,
success in Tikrit could help restore a degree of faith in his ability to
stem the militant tide. Al-Maliki, a Shiite who has been widely accused
of monopolizing power and alienating Iraq’s Sunni and Kurdish
minorities, is under growing pressure to step aside. But he appears set
on a third consecutive term as prime minister after his bloc won the
most seats in April elections.
The government received a boost in
its battle with the militants with the arrival in Baghdad late Saturday
of five Sukhoi 25 warplanes purchased secondhand from Russia. The
aircraft is designed to provide close air support to ground forces and
to destroy mobile targets.
Iraqi air force commander Lt. Gen.
Anwar Hama Amin said the military is "in urgent need of this type of
aircraft during this difficult time."
"These jets will enter
service within a few days — the coming three or four days — in order to
support the units and to fight the terrorist ISIL organization," he
said, referring to the al-Qaida breakaway group that has spearheaded the
Sunni militant offensive.
The planes could be deployed in the
fight for Tikrit, a city of more than 200,000 some 130 kilometers (80
miles) north of Baghdad, where anger toward Iraq’s Shiite-led government
runs deep.
The Islamic State, which already controls vast swaths
in northern and eastern Syria amid the chaos of that nation’s civil war,
aims to erase the borders of the modern Middle East and impose its
strict brand of Shariah law.
In Iraq, the group has formed an
alliance of sorts with fellow Islamic militants, as well as former
members of Saddam’s Baath party, with all of them hoping to overthrow
al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government.
The militants have tapped into
deep-seated discontent among Iraq’s Sunnis, who largely dominated the
country until the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam brought the Shiite
majority to power. Since then, Sunnis have complained of discrimination
and said they are unfairly targeted by the country’s security forces.
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Associated Press writer Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this report.
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