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![Al-Abadi, seen here during the 94 anniversary of the creation of the Iraqi army, has warned Sunni tribal fighters to break off their alleged ISIL affiliations ahead of the Tikrit offensive [Xinhua]](http://thebricspost.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/237180558_8-e1425318543709.jpg)
Al-Abadi, seen here during the 94 anniversary of the creation of the Iraqi army, has warned Sunni tribal fighters to break off their alleged ISIL affiliations ahead of the Tikrit offensive [Xinhua]
US-led Coalition air raids had previously pounded ISIL positions along the highway tying Baghdad and the ISIL-captured city of Mosul in the north.
The current offensive, announced on Iraqi television Monday morning, is the latest effort to seize control of Tikrit, capital of Salauhddin province, 130km north of Baghdad as part of a larger strategy to drive ISIL out of Nineveh and Anbar provinces.
Tikrit fell virtually unchallenged to ISIL in June 2014; a number of efforts by the Iraqi military to retake the city since then have failed.
At press time, the Iraqi military said they had “liberated” a number of villages 22km south of Tikrit but had not yet made their push to the city where the late President Saddam Hussein was born.
On Sunday night, Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi called on Sunni tribal fighters to break off from ISIL and join the fight to liberate Iraq province by province.
The Tikrit offensive will be seen as a test for a much larger prize – Mosul, and may determine whether ISIL can be pushed out of Iraq.
US military experts have over the past few months said that the Iraqi military was not ready yet to launch such campaigns even with the presence of Western special forces training soldiers to battle ISIL.
Last week, a number of human rights groups warned that the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS) may be targeting Iraq’s minorities in the north for annihilation.
The BRICS POST with input from Agencies
