In October, I met dozens of families huddled in the hillsides around Amerli, a town of some 26,000 people 110 miles north of Baghdad. They had sought shelter there, helplessly watching as their homes burned and exploded in the weeks and months after government-backed Shiite militias took control of their villages, after expelling fighters from the Islamic State.
What they told me bears striking — and disturbing — similarity to what is happening in Tikrit right now, as Iraqi security forces and Shiite militias attempt to retake the city from the Islamic State with the support of U.S. airstrikes. Iraqi forces and militia fighters captured almost the entire city by Wednesday night, as Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi arrived to cheer the conquest and Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeidi hailed the “magnificent victory” there.
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