Iraq launches push for militant-held northern city
Source: AP-Excite
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA and SAMEER N. YACOUB
BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi troops backed by helicopter gunships launched an operation early Saturday aimed at dislodging Sunni militants from the northern city of Tikrit, one of two major urban centers they seized in recent weeks in a dramatic blitz across the country.
After watching much of Iraq slip out of government hands, military officials sought to portray the push that began before dawn as a significant step that puts the army back on the offensive. They said the operation includes commandos, tanks and helicopters, as well as pro-government Sunni fighters and Shiite volunteers.
Tikrit residents reported clashes in the city, but the extent of the fighting was unclear.
Jawad al-Bolani, a security official in the Salahuddin Operation Command, said the immediate objective is Tikrit, the hometown of former dictator Saddam Hussein and one of two major cities to fall in recent weeks to the al-Qaida breakaway Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and allied Sunni militants. He said there was no concrete timeline for the operation to conclude.
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A displaced Iraqi Christian girl who fled from the Christian village of Hamdania near Mosul province in Iraq sleeps on a mattress where she settled with her family at a temporary shelter for the displaced Christian families, in Ainkawa, a suburb of Irbil, with a majority Christian population, Iraq, Friday, June 27, 2014. Around 2,000 Christians had entered the Kurdish city of Irbil by Thursday morning, June 26. A Christian official there said the Kurdish region is the only part of Iraq where Christians are protected from violence. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
