Posted on 03/02/2015 10:51:07 AM PST by dangus
Some 30,000 Iraqi troops and militias have launched a full-scale offensive backed by airstrikes to retake the major city of Tikrit from Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants, Al Arabiya’s correspondent in Iraq said.
“Security forces are advancing on three main fronts towards Tikrit, Ad-Dawr (to the south) and Al-Alam (to the north),” an army lieutenant colonel on the ground told Agence France-Presse by telephone.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi had announced on Sunday the “zero hour” of an operation to liberate ISIS-held territories in the province of Saladin, with its capital Tikrit, according to Al Arabiya News Channel.
Iraqi forces are also “moving along side roads to prevent Daesh’s escape,” the colonel said, using an Arab acronym for the ISIS, which has controlled the hometown of executed dictator Saddam Hussein for nearly nine months.
Residents of Tikrit were reportedly told to evacuate the area ahead of the military operation.
Iraqi officials and militia commanders regard the recapture of Tikrit as an essential step toward the liberation of Mosul.
The specifics of the battle’s plan were not revealed. But military experts believe that joint Iraq forces will attack from multiple fronts.
The first location will be from the Aoja area, south of Tikrit, with the support of Iraqi Special Forces. The second front will be from an area close to Tikrit University in which the Iraqi army and police will attack from. The third attack will carried from the southwest of Tikrit.
Security sources told Al Arabiya News Channel that Iraqi forces are now in control of the northern areas of the Albu Obaid village and west of Tikrit.
The operation to retake Tikrit, the home town of Iraq’s former President Saddam Hussein, marks a major test for Iraqi forces
I sure hope they have the exits blocked first.
They need to kill every last ISIS SOB.
Nape the exits.
Meaning no one told Obama's state department.
I predict: Fail.
The Kurds have been highly successful reclaiming villages in Nineweh Province in Northern Iraq, around Kohane in North-Central Syria, and in the Northeast corner of Syria. So far, the main Iraqi forces have struggled much more in defeating ISIS/Daesh. They have driven ISIS/Daesh out of Karbala, Babel, Baghdad and Diyala governates. Another major push for Mosul is planned next; the leadership of ISIS/Daesh has already fled Mosul for Hijawa in the Kirkuk governate. The largest Iraqi cities still under ISIS/Daesh control are Mosul, Fallujuah, Tikrit,Hajiwa and Hiit.
In all probability, it'll be even more than 30,000 although they won't call more than 30,000 combatants since the other few tens of thousands will be securing airbases and other facilities if the Iraqi Army falls apart yet again.
JMHo
I’m relieved they’re holding off on Mosul for now. I understand the intense desire to liberate it: unlike most cities still under ISIS/Daesh control, Mosul has large populations of people who are not Sunni Arabs. But I believe that it is smart to first cut off the Mosul-Hajiwa corridor by taking full control of Salah ah’Din, and make sure the Syrian-Turkish border crossings at Jarabulus and Tal Abyad are fully under control of the Kurds.
FYI:
I am NOT an Iraq-War vet, or anyone with special or local knowledge of the situation in Iraq; it’s just I’ve watched from afar for 13 years, wondering “Why aren’t they doing this? Why would they do that?” and found when they finally do what seemed like common sense from afar, they have much more success.
According to some sources the operation is being led by a commander from Iran’s elite Quds force.
Fighting a terrorist organization like a traditional army?
That will work out swell. It’s like fighting a smoke cloud with a baseball bat and finding that the room still smells afterwards.
“Fighting a terrorist organization like a traditional army?”
That’s going to be the initial thrust at first, but antiterror ops will follow, most likely.
Now that it is their throat that will get cut, they are going in with zero concern for collateral damage.
Tikrit will be flattened and Mosul will be flattened. The only things left standing will be due to a lack of ordnance.
The Shia don't give two craps, how many Sunni they kill.
“Mosul has large populations of people who are not Sunni Arabs”...Assuming ISIS hasn’t killed them all already.
Residents were told before hand to evacuate. Soooo who did they tell?
From what I understand, ISIS/Daesh in Iraq is mostly the leftover from the Iraqi National Guard of Hussein’s day; they’re not really insurgents. The new Iraqi army is doing what I was expecting us to do in 2003: clearing out all the homes, seizing all the weapons, shooting anyone who resists. The problem with Daesh is that most of the new Iraqi army in the North was Sunni, so there’d be Sunni governing/patroling Sunni, but when Daesh looked like they were forming a new government, the Sunnis had no loyalty. The new Iraqi army is mostly Shiite, with Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni tribal militias supporting them.
The truth is, though, I expect this to be to the ISIS war what the Battle of the Bulge was to WWII: a long-drawn-out struggle with several apparent reversals. But the good news is that it will probably draw almost all of the ISIS firepower away from Kurdish / Assyrian lands. The more this battle draws out, the more isolated ISIS will be.
Obama's Jarrettatolla way.
If the people evacuating were ISIL/Daesh, the good news is still that they’re gone. ISIL/Daesh needs Tikrit. Without it, they’ll be powerless to stop the Shiite/Kurdish/tribal forces from dividing Fallujah, Mosul and Hajiwa from each other. Tikrit supplies a power base where they can move heavy equipment within an urban environment, among the Mosul, Hajiwa and Fallujah corridors.
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