The Second Battle of Tikrit was a battle in which Iraqi Security Forces recaptured the city of Tikrit (the provincial capital of the Saladin Governorate) from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Iraqi forces consisted of the Iraqi Army and the Popular Mobilization Forces (the bulk of the ground forces, consisting of Shia militiamen and also some Sunni tribesmen), receiving assistance from Iran's Quds Force officers on the ground, and air support from the American, British, and French air forces.
The city of Tikrit, located in the central part of the Saladin Governorate in north of Baghdad and Samarra and lying adjacent to the Tigris River, was lost to ISIL during the huge strides made by the group during its offensive in June 2014. After its capture, ISIL retaliated with the massacre at Camp Speicher, a nearby training facility for the Iraqi Air Force. After months of preparation and intelligence-gathering, Iraqi forces engaged in offensive operations to fully encircle and subsequently retake the city, starting on 2 March 2015. The offensive was the largest anti-ISIL operation to date, involving some 20,000–30,000 Iraqi forces (outnumbering ISIL fighters more than two-to-one), with an estimated 13,000 ISIL fighters present. It was reported that 90% of the residents of the city left out of fear both of ISIL and retaliatory attacks by Shia militias once the city is captured. As such, most of the residents fled to nearby cities, such as Baghdad and Samarra, or even further to Iraqi Kurdistan or Lebanon.
On 4 April, after several days of heavy fighting and acts of vengeance committed by some Shia militias, the situation in the city was reported to have been stabilized, and the last pockets of ISIL resistance were eliminated, with an Iraqi Police Major reporting that "The situation now is calm." However, on 5 April, continued resistance by 500 ISIL fighters in the city was reported in several pockets, which persisted for another week as government forces continued combing Tikrit for hiding ISIL fighters, especially in the northern Qadisiya District. On 12 April 2015, Iraqi forces declared that Tikrit was finally free of all ISIL forces, stating that it was safe for residents to return. However, pockets of resistance persisted until 17 April, when the last 140 ISIL sleeper agents in the city were killed. Cleanup and defusing operations in the city continued, but Iraqi officials predicted that it would take at least several months to remove the estimated 5,000–10,000 IEDs left behind by ISIL in Tikrit.
Background
Tikrit, the hometown of the ex-president Saddam Hussein, fell to ISIL during the offensive in June 2014. A first attempt to recapture the city in late June 2014 was repelled by ISIL after a few days, as well as another Iraqi attempt to recapture the city in July 2014. Subsequent efforts in December 2014 also failed to make headway against ISIL, which consolidated control over Tikrit and its environs. On the morning of 19 August 2014, Iraqi government troops and allied militiamen launched a major operation, to retake the city of Tikrit from the militants. The military push started early in the morning from the south and southwest of the city. However, by the afternoon, the offensive had been repelled by the insurgents. Additionally, the military lost its positions in the southern area of the city it had captured a few weeks earlier.
The operation in Tikrit counted as the first major attempt by both Iraqi military and the Iran-backed Shiite to recapture ground seized by the Islamic State group since the previous summer.
Preparations
In early February 2015, Iraqi forces and their allies began preparations for an attack on Tikrit, with troops arriving in the nearby city of Samarra. The allied forces were composed of a heterogeneous make-up, including Iraqi security forces; a multitude of Shia militias which received support, training, and leaders from Iran; and a number of Sunni tribes. Iranian leaders included officers from the revolutionary guard's extraterritorial operations division, the Quds Force, including the commander of the Quds Force, General Qasem Soleimani himself.
The Iraqi Army and Security Forces, along with Shia militia groups who call themselves Popular Mobilisation Units, were to push into Tikrit from several directions. Some Iranian commanders took part in leading the operation, with general Qasem Soleimani directing operations on the eastern flank from a village about 35 miles from Tikrit called Albu Rayash. The offensive was the biggest military operation in the Salahuddin region since the previous summer, when ISIL fighters killed hundreds of Iraq army soldiers who had abandoned their military base at Camp Speicher outside Tikrit. Soleimani was also spotted at Camp Speicher where he oversaw elements of the Kata'ib Imam Ali and the Badr brigades.
The Shia paramilitary groups constituted by far the largest component of the allied forces at 20,000 fighters, with 3,000 being the total count of the Iraqi Security Forces and roughly a thousand or so Sunni tribesman making up the rest of the combined army.
An adviser to the Iraqi government was quoted as saying that the attackers were divided into an initial assault force of 9,000, with another group made up of local Sunni tribesmen who were to "pacify" the city, and another group which would work on intelligence gathering, reconstruction work, and dealing with the expected refugee flow caused by the fighting.
According to reports from locals, most of the civilian residents had left Tikrit for Iraqi Kurdistan and Baghdad, leaving mostly ISIL fighters inside the city. The UN estimated that about 28,000 civilians had reached Samarra following the outbreak of the offensive against ISIL.
The U.S.-led Coalition was not initially a participant in the operation. As the battle commenced, Gen. Martin Dempsey mentioned that, while the U.S.-led Coalition had not been directly involved in the offensive, the continuous airstrikes along the length and breadth of ISIL territories in Syria and Iraq had greatly depleted the groups' capacity, and that the newest assault against Tikrit would not have been militarily feasible, were it not for the airstrike campaign in the preceding months throughout the country. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs also maintained that Iran's overt role could be positive and could only become problematic if it descended into sectarianism.
The offensive
Encirclement
On 2 March 2015, the Iraqi government launched a massive military operation to recapture Tikrit, with 20,000–30,000 allied fighters, backed by aircraft, besieging the city on three fronts.
On 3 March, the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF)—in cooperation with local tribes and militias—captured the strategic oil fields of Alas and 'Ajeel in eastern Tikrit, after the ISIL militants were relentlessly bombarded by a barrage of artillery shells and gunfire from the east. Due to their withdrawal from the Alas and 'Ajeel Oil Fields, ISIL was forced to withdraw towards one of their last strongholds at the town of Al-'Alam, where ISIL was expected to prepare its last stand against the Iraqi Army and its allies in the northern sector of the conflict. Al-'Alam was the last land bridge left for ISIL's communications with the rest of its territories in the province, and if it was cut, it would result in their encirclement.
Continuing their offensive, the ISF took complete control of the highway between Tuz Khurmato and Tikrit, raising the Iraqi flag at the police headquarters in the town of Ksayba, following their fierce clashes with ISIL combatants. East of Tikrit, the ISF and their allies captured the Hamrin Mountains (Jabal Hamrin), killing a number of militants in the process. According to Iraqi media source Haidar Sumeri, four suicide bombers were killed during the battle, including a female identified among the dead militants.
The high number of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) ISIL planted along the possible routes of advance towards Tikrit necessitated that the allied commanders operate with diligence and caution. Another factor contributing to the slowed advance of the allied forces was the large number of ISIL snipers present.
On 5 March, ISIL militants set fire to oil wells in the Ajil field in an attempt to hinder airstrikes against their positions. According to military sources, the allied forces had retaken the village of al-Maibdi, on the road between Tikrit and Kirkuk, as well as the nearby Ajil and Alas oilfields. On 7 March the strategic town of al-Dour, located south of Tikrit, was captured from ISIL and secured, allowing the allies to progress further northward, in support of other contingents on the east bank of the Tigris River, towards Tikrit itself.
On 9 March, the allied forces rapidly advanced on and captured the town of Al-Alam, which lies to the northeast of Tikrit and was the last line of communication ISIL militants had left with their territories to the north. The successful assault on al-Alam, which was commanded by Hadi al-Ameri under the advice of Qasem Soleimani, effectively completed the encirclement of ISIL in and around Tikrit. Despite ISIL's efforts to forestall the rapid advance of the allies on the east bank of the Tigris River, by blowing up the bridge leading to the city, the allies managed to mount a push across the river and establish a bridgehead, though other sources reported that the destruction of the bridge momentarily held up the advance in this sector, with a source saying that "ISIS jihadists blew up a vital bridge over the Tigris River, which may delay the progress operations in the eastern parts of Tikrit." ISIL was suffering heavy casualties, with reports of their dead littering the streets, with only 2,000–3,000 militants left to make a last stand in the city itself.
Also, at this time, ISIL hung dead bodies at the entrance to the northern town of Hawija, which were those of militants who deserted from Tikrit, according to Al Rai's chief correspondent Elijah J. Magnier. Still, ISIL reinforcements were being sent to Tikrit from other parts of Iraq.
Push into the city
The ground assault on the city itself started on 11 March, and by the next day, approximately three quarters of Tikrit was in allied hands according to Iraqi officials, while the rest remained under ISIL control with only a few hundred remaining ISIL militants reportedly holding out in defending the centre of Tikrit. Under these circumstances, ISIL reportedly resorted to the use of chlorine gas against the allied combatants.
On 13 March, it was revealed that ISIL was still in control of around half of the city, while the ground offensive had stalled. Meanwhile, it was reported that Shia militia fighters and Iraqi government troops were torturing, and conducting revenge killings of, captured ISIL prisoners. Allegedly, captured militants were beaten, shot, beheaded, dismembered, and thrown from buildings by Iraqi forces, with the remains mutilated and photographs posted online. Among the pictures posted on pro-Shia and Iraqi forums and on Instagram were images of beheaded ISIL fighters, while other images showed militants shot and dragged behind trucks, and thrown from high buildings. According to reports, the killings were revenge for similar ISIL atrocities, especially the Camp Speicher massacre of June 2014. In response to the allegations, the Iraqi Army promised an investigation.
By 14 March, the number of ISIL militants holed up in the center of Tikrit had been reduced to around 1,000 (some reports claimed 60 or 70), with Iraqi commanders claiming to be able to purge the city entirely of the enemy within a matter of days, in a slow and methodical approach to minimise casualties from the plethora of IEDs & booby-traps placed by ISIL in the urban area. A temporary halt to the advance was made in order to bring up specialists as well as elite troops with more urban warfare experience for the final push into the city center held by the remaining ISIL militants.
There was a reported surge of material reinforcements for the allied forces during the later stages of the operation, with a myriad of Iranian-made weaponry making it to the frontline. These were said to include tanks, rocket systems, combat vehicles, and even UAVs as U.S. officials told the New York Times that Iran sent drones toward Tikrit, and Iran's state-owned Fars news agency claimed that unmanned vehicles were airborne over the city.
In the period between 10 and 15 March, more than 200 mortar rounds had been launched into the Qadisiya district by the allied forces.
On 16 March, various news outlets reported on the destruction of Saddam Hussein's tomb in his ancestral village of al-Awja. Allied soldiers stated that ISIL had planted IEDs throughout the mausoleum and booby-trapped the entire complex in an attempt to ambush the attackers. The building was completely leveled and only the pillars remained. After Iraqi forces took the control of al-Awja, Shia militiamen of the Popular Mobilization Committee placed the Shi'ite militia's insignia around the village, including that of the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani—their commander, and also a veteran of the Iran–Iraq War waged by Saddam Hussein.
Offensive stalled
Casualties mounted during urban warfare in the tight city streets of central Tikrit, where ISIL planted a massive number of bombs and prepared a very strong defense at the heart of the city. Due to the unexpected resistance, there were reports of mounting casualties sustained by the allied side, who called up their specialist forces to engage in urban warfare in the city center. One of the commanders of the Asa'ib Ahle-Haq militia stated that, "The battle to retake Tikrit will be difficult because of the preparations (ISIL) made. They planted bombs on all the streets, buildings, bridges, everything. For this reason, our forces were stopped by these defensive preparations. We need forces trained in urban warfare to break in...but any besieged person fights fiercely." In downtown Tikrit alone, there was a reported total of some 6,500 IEDs.