Shia-backed military operation is biggest in Salahuddin since Sunni Islamist radicals seized swaths of northern Iraq last year
Iraq’s armed forces, backed by Shia militia, have begun a fresh campaign to wrest control and “liberate” Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, now a stronghold ofIslamic State (Isis), the country’s prime minister has said.
The long-promised battle for Tikrit and the province of Salahuddin, north of Baghdad, is set to be a dry run for another offensive, backed by the US-led international coalition and Shia militia, to retake Isis-controlled Mosul.
The government faces a challenge in overthrowing the militants – who are entrenched within both urban centres and villages – without alienating local Sunnis and enabling retributive attacks by the Shia militia against Sunnis suspected of collaboration with Isis.
“Our goal is to liberate people from these terrorist groups,” said Haidar al-Abadi, the Iraqi prime minister, on Sunday. He was speaking from the city of Samarra, a day after two suicide attacks by Isis in the area.
Abadi also called for “utmost care in protecting civilian lives and property”.
Reports of attacks by the militia on Sunni civilians – including accusations of mass executions – have increased in recent weeks, as they battle to retake control of towns and villages that were under Isis control.
Members of the Sunni community already felt alienated and abandoned by the government in Baghdad in the runup to the Isis takeover.
“The prime minister’s first instructions and orders were that the local population’s safety was a priority,” said Rafid Jaboori, a spokesman for the Iraqi premier.
“[Tikrit’s] liberation will mean the liberating the whole province,” he added. “That will show the world once again the determination of the Iraqi government to liberate its land and protect its people no matter what their religious or ethnic background might be.”
The Iraqi government’s greatest challenge is likely to be the Isis strongholds in al-Dawr, south of Tikrit and west of the city in Albu Obaid – areas believed to be staging grounds for suicide attacks – said Dr Hisham al-Hashimi, who advises the Iraqi government on Isis.
He said the military operations in north Tikrit had brought the government forces to just two miles from the centre of the city, with fierce fighting continuing in the south.
Hashimi said the pro-government forces, made up of 27,000 cadres, had been divided into an initial liberation force of 9,000, a second group made up of local tribesmen to pacify the town, and a third group tasked with gathering intelligence, reconstruction, and repatriating refugees who had fled the area.
He said the plan was intended to greatly limit friction between locals and the forces trying to retake the area.
But others are sceptical that the militia will avoid retributions, particularly since some, like the large Badr Corps, say they want to avenge the Camp Speicher massacre in Tikrit last year, in which Isis reportedly killed more than 1,500 Iraqi armed forces cadets.
“The situation is extremely toxic and the fight will be messy,” said Hassan Hassan, co-author of the book Isis: inside the army of terror.
Hassan said the volunteer fighters, who are part of the Hashd al-Shaabi (“Popular Mobilisation”) were seeking greater political influence through a victory against Isis in Tikrit.
He said the battle for the city would be gruelling but “not impossible”, given that pro-government forces can attack it on three fronts, but said Isis may simply reappear in another area. And he cautioned that the likely destruction of the city may benefit Isis in the long run.
“If pro-government militia succeed, it will probably be after the complete destruction of the city and it will be credited to Iranian-backed militia which will further alienate Sunnis and make Isis’s hold on larger cities in Iraq and Syria even firmer,” said Hassan. “It is clearly a chance for these militia to score points and project power, which the US should keep in mind if it plans to provide air cover for these forces.”
Iranian news agencies reported on Monday that Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds force – the external arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards – has arrived in Tikrit in order to “supervise and advise” local Iraqi forces.
The semi-official Fars news agency, which is affiliated to the Guards, quoted unnamed sources as saying that Suleimani was in the Iraqi city helping the Iraqi forces in their fight against Isis.
The Iranian commander is one of the key players in the war against Isis and enjoys a great deal of influence among Shia militia in Iraq. Suleimani and his forces have been active in battles against Isis – in Diyala near the border with Iran as well as in Amerli in the north and in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The efforts to protect and enfranchise Sunni civilians in cities held by Isis are seen as crucial to the long-term defeat of the group.
“Isis might lose a town but it can always come back to it,” Hassan added. “The key is to gain the trust of local Sunni forces and use them against Isis.”
In February, the clearest call against retributive attacks in the run-up to the offensive came from Iraq’s highest Shia authority, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, whose office issued a series of guidelines for fighters in the country’s battlefields, ordering them to observe Islam’s rules of war.
“Know that most of those who fight you are victims who have been led astray by others,” Sistani said in the guidelines document. “Do not let those who led others astray be better than you.”
The detailed list, which was backed by religious traditions from the time of the prophet Muhammad and his successors, ordered the fighters not to kill innocents, to protect women, children and the elderly “even if they were the families of those who fight you”, and prohibited damaging properties or seizing money from liberated areas.
Sistani also ordered the fighters not to excommunicate their opponents in the battlefield in order to justify killing them, and to protect all of Iraq’s minorities.
Isis has repeatedly attacked minorities in Iraq, evicting many of the country’s Chaldean Christians from their ancestral homelands in the Nineveh plains, and attempting to starve and enslave thousands of the ancient Yazidi minority.
Joboori, the Iraqi prime minister’s spokesperson, said rehabilitation of the liberated areas and the return of internal refugees was the government’s top priority, but he said Iraq would need “continuous support from our friends and allies” in order to rehabilitate those areas and maintain momentum on the ground.
He said the country’s economic woes had worsened as a result of the recent drop in the price of oil.
A successful operation in Tikrit is likely to help the Iraqi military regain a measure of self-confidence after its embarrassing withdrawal in the face of the initial Isis assault.
There have already been several failed attempts to drive the militants out of Tikrit since last June, when Isis declared a caliphate in the territories it controls in eastern Syria and northern and western Iraq.
“If the victory is achieved, morale will increase,” said Hashimi, the Iraqi government adviser.
