Cleric appeals for solidarity in Tikrit battle
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani asks forces to reunite to fight ISIL
BAGHDAD Iraq’s most revered Shiite cleric on Friday called for unity among the country’s forces battling ISIL after most of the Iranbacked Shiite militias pulled out of the offensive in the militant-held city of Tikrit in protest over U.S. airstrikes there.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s appeal came a day after the militias, which had been instrumental in the operation to recapture Saddam Hussein’s hometown, announced their boycott of the Tikrit offensive.
The U.S. started providing airstrikes on Wednesday in support of the mission at the request of Iraq’s government.
Al-Sistani said that co-ordination between the military, Shiite militias and tribes is necessary for the success of the operation.
It is up to the “high command of (the Iraqi) armed forces to adopt the proper and right decision,” al-Sistani said.
Iraqi troops continued their push in Tikrit on Friday as fighter planes pounded ISIL targets from above.
Militants holed up in the centre of Tikrit fired mortars at the military, slowing its progress.
Iraq’s military suffered a humiliating defeat during ISIL’s lightning offensive last year, when it crumbled in the face of the group’s onslaught in Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul.
Days after the fall of Mosul, al-Sistani called on volunteers to rush to the battlefields and reinforce the military, and many of the country’s militias reported for duty. But with a range of different leaders and loyalties, many of them became difficult to control.
On Thursday, Iraqi troops launched what commanders described as the final phase of the Tikrit offensive — this one without the Shiite militias. The militias’ pullout has prompted mixed reactions in Iraq. While several of them have been accused by human rights groups of committing atrocities
against Sunni civilians, many in Iraq view them as the most capable fighting force in the country.
The militias receive significant backing from Iran, one of Iraq’s biggest allies, which raised the prospect of coalition interests uncomfortably overlapping with those of Iran.