Having taken control of nearby town, pro-government forces move closer in offensive that would mark first time Islamic State cedes a major city





Iraqi forces led by Shia militias and backed by the army and Sunni tribal fighters appear poised to recapture the Islamic State stronghold of Tikrit in northern Iraq, in an offensive that could mark the first major reversal for the militant group in the country.

The pro-government forces have taken control of al-Alam, a strategic town on the eastern outskirts of Tikrit, and inched closer to the centre of Saddam Hussein’s hometown and former government installations west of the Tigris river, now held by Isis.

“The forces want to hold the Friday prayers in the centre of Salahuddin,” said Dr Hisham al-Hashimi, who advises the Iraqi government on Isis, referring to the province whose administrative capital is Tikrit.

The Tikrit offensive is the largest against the jihadi group since it conquered large areas of the country in a lightning advance last summer.

Its success would mark the first time Isis has ceded a major city under its control. Two previous attempts to retake it have failed.

“The situation bodes well,” said Ahmad al-Kinani, a member of the political council of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, the powerful militia and Shia political organisation taking part in the offensive.

Kinani told the Guardian the security forces and Hashd al-Shaabi or popular mobilisation units, the name given to the panoply of militias taking part in the campaign, had taken control of Tikrit general hospital, not far from the city centre, as well as parts of Tikrit University.

He said the main challenge is Isis’s use of large trucks and lorries as well as armoured vehicles packed with explosives.

He said the retaking of al-Alam, which was difficult due to its terrain, has removed the largest obstacle but that there were pockets of resistance in Tikrit that still needed to be eliminated.

Hashimi said Isis forces were now concentrated west of the Tigris river near the palaces and government compounds in the area, with Iraqi forces as close as 1.8 miles (3km) away.

But he said progress was slowed by the presence of roughly 180,000 booby traps and IEDs, as well as snipers positioned along key roads, and suicide bombers.

He said that 500 members of Saddam Hussein’s Bou Nasser tribe from Tikrit had joined the pro-government forces in the fight, a step he described as unprecedented.

Isis struck back in Ramadi in Anbar province, another key battleground in the country, where the militant group detonated over a dozen car bombs against Iraqi army positions in the city, which lies just 90 km west of Baghdad.

Ramadi and Fallujah in Anbar are set to be key battlegrounds in the campaign to wrest control of swathes of Iraq from Isis, and where pro-government forces will also have to work with local Sunni tribes to eliminate the insurgents.

Iraqi officials hope the participation of Sunni tribes in the Tikrit campaign will alleviate fears that it is a sectarian affair and that the militias may carry out retributive attacks against civilians and suspected Isis collaborators, though analysts have insisted Sunnis must take a leading role.

Some of the Shia militias taking part in the campaign have also said they want to avenge the infamous Camp Speicher massacre, one of the largest incidents of mass execution by Isis, when up to 1,700 Iraqi Shia army cadets were massacred last year.

The stated desire to avenge the massacre has also given rise to fears by locals from Tikrit that the militias may carry out retributive killings or summary executions.

The force of roughly 27,000 earmarked to carry out the Tikrit campaign is led by the Hashd, which has carried out roughly 70% of the operations, according to Kinani. But reports have emerged in recent months of abuses by the militias, accusing them of killing, evicting and kidnapping civilians in areas retaken from Isis.

Iran is also backing the operation, with Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the Quds Force – the external arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards – believed to be on the ground near Tikrit. Meanwhile, the US-led coalition is watching the campaign from the sidelines, having not been invited to launch air strikes by the government in Baghdad.

Kinani said there would be no retributive measures by the militias, adding that Isis collaborators would be handed over to the government, although there were conflicting reports of some homes being torched in cleared districts.

He said the governor of Salahuddin province was handling the return of families displaced by the fighting, and the local Sunni tribes had played an “honourable role” in the offensive, saying that would counter claims that the popular militias were sectarian in nature and showed the campaign has so far been a “clean operation”.

“The only goal of the Hashd is to destroy Daesh cliques in Iraq,” he said, using the group’s Arabic acronym.

Kinani reiterated a previous statement that the Iranian role in the campaign was exaggerated and limited to the presence of a few military advisers, but he nonetheless said that “some in the western coalition” were not happy with the success in Tikrit.

“When the Hashd stands against Daesh, we are spoiling the American and western project in Iraq,” he said.

Fanar Haddad, who wrote the book Sectarianism in Iraq: Antagonistic Visions of Unity, said the key question will be whether the forces taking part in the Tikrit offensive will be able to hold on to the areas recaptured from Isis and secure broad local support.

“So far, we are not seeing a significant backlash against the popular mobilisation units and the Iraqi army and we are seeing some cooperation from local Sunni tribes,” he said.

“However, the extent and longevity of this local support is not clear. Much will depend on what happens next in Tikrit and other recaptured areas. It is absolutely crucial that the punitive and retributive aspect of the campaign is kept to a minimum.

“If this impulse is not checked, it could threaten the campaign’s progress further north and could jeopardise any efforts to stabilise and reintegrate recaptured areas.”

But Haddad said if the aftermath of the operation was carefully managed, and given the desperation in some other parts of Iraq, there could be momentum towards a broader, cross-sectarian coalition against Isis.

“One can only hope that such opportunities are not squandered,” he said.