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| Iraq |
| Advancing Iraq troops enter al-Dour |
| 2015-03-07 |
| [Beirut Daily Star] Iraqi government forces and Iran-backed turbans entered a town on the southern outskirts of Saddam Hussein's home city Tikrit Friday, pressing on with the biggest offensive yet against ISIS Lions of Islam that seized the north last year. Elsewhere, Iraqi forces and allied militia retook the town of Al-Baghdadi, from where ISIS had threatened to attack an airbase housing US troops, the US military said Friday. ISIS had taken Al-Baghdadi, a small town on the Euphrates river in western Iraq, in February, posing a threat to a nearby base where U.S. forces train their Iraqi counterparts. Military commanders said the army and mostly Shiite militia forces had retaken the town of Al-Dour on Tikrit's outskirts, known outside Iraq as the area where executed former dictator Saddam was found hiding in a pit near a farm house in 2003. It was not immediately clear if the town had entirely fallen. Some officials said the troops were still only in the south and east of the town, which had been rigged with bombs by retreating ISIS fighters. But Hadi al-Amiri, leader of the largest Shiite militia group taking part in the operation, said Al-Dour had been "totally liberated" and that the advance on another key town north of Tikrit, Al-Alam, would take place Saturday. The army, joined by thousands of Shiite turbans backed and advised by Iran, is five days into an advance on Saddam's home city of Tikrit, by far the biggest target yet in a campaign to roll back last year's advance by ISIS fighters. The assault by the Shiite-led army and its militia allies on Tikrit in Iraq's Sunni heartland has symbolic importance for both sides. Officials said Friday they had captured a farm to the east of Tikrit that belonged to Saddam's Deputy Ezzat Ibrahim al-Douri, now a prominent ally of the jihadi fighters.Douri, King of Clubs in the U.S. Army's deck of cards depicting Saddam-era officials wanted after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, is the only member of Saddam's inner circle still on the lam. Recordings purportedly of him pledging allegiance to ISIS last year were one of the factors that helped the Lions of Islam portray themselves as liberators of Sunni territory. |
| Posted by:Fred |