After a Week of Trying, the Iraqi Army Still Has Not Retaken the City of Tikrit; Iraqi Victory Claims Contradicted by Evidence On-the-Ground

July 7, 2014

Army Struggles to Retake Strategic City of Tikrit

Matt Bradley

Wall Street Journal

BAGHDAD—Iraq’s military fought insurgents outside the strategically important city of Tikrit on Friday, as the country’s leader rejected calls to step down and yield to a more inclusive government.

There were conflicting reports over whether troops recaptured the town of Awja, the birthplace of late strongman Saddam Hussein, which lies about 90 miles from the capital here. Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, the Iraqi Army spokesman, said his forces had recaptured Awja.

But Iraq’s military has repeatedly announced victories that weren’t supported by evidence on the ground, and two battlefield commanders contradicted him on Friday.

They said in interviews that fighting continued late on Friday outside of Awja and that the army was still launching mortars and helicopter airstrikes at insurgent positions inside Awja.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, meanwhile, rejected calls by Iraqi politicians and religious leaders to step aside to make way for a government that is more inclusive of the minority Sunnis and Kurds that could help battle an uprising led by the Islamic State—formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.

Mr. Maliki’s Shiite-dominant party won the most seats in a recent parliamentary vote and he is trying to cobble together a government.

"I will never waive the nomination for the premier post since my coalition is the biggest bloc and has the right to have the premier post, and it not the right of any other side to place such conditions," Mr. Maliki said in a speech on Friday.

His comments, in addition to the battlefield developments, point to an impasse that stands to delay a resolution to violence that has engulfed major parts of the country and gridlocked its political system.

Meanwhile, Sabah Al Fatlawi, one of the commanders, said Iraqi forces were in control of an important highway west of Awja that connects Tikrit with the city of Samarra, home to a sacred Shiite shrine under threat by the Islamic State.

Iraqi troops also have occupied the sprawling grounds of Tikrit University, just outside Tikrit, for much of the past week after they were airdropped into the campus several days ago. Clashes have continued around the university for days, but residents of Tikrit say militants have checked their progress beyond the university.

If Iraq’s military succeeds in retaking Awja, it would amount to a symbolic victory for Iraq’s military after it was humbled last month by the Islamic State. The town’s capture would also put the army closer to Tikrit, where battles have raged for a week.

Iraqi forces have been slowed by land mines that litter the roads around Tikrit, officials said.

The fight to retake Tikrit also has been complicated by the recent arrival of thousands of fighters from Shiite militia groups under the banner of the Peace Brigades, a recently assembled force of volunteers who answered calls by Shiite political leaders and clerics to defend Iraq from Islamic State forces.

Though the militias add manpower to the military’s badly broken ranks, their lack of discipline has frequently led to human-rights abuses such as indiscriminate killings of civilians. Mr. Maliki’s reliance on civilian militias could also steer the country closer to the kind of sectarian civil war that nearly split Iraq in 2006 and 2007.

Shiite militiamen gathered on Friday at a youth center outside in the city of Samarra. But worried about the potential for sectarian violence, local tribal and religious leaders urged military officers to force the Shiite volunteers to leave the city. By late afternoon on Friday, the Peace Brigades had withdrawn to a suburb.