Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Tikrit Falls to ISIL

Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) militants overran the Iraqi city of Tikrit today, only a day after they captured Mosul. “All of Tikrit is in the hands of the militant,” a police colonel told AFP. A police brigadier general told AFP that fighters attacked Tikrit from the north, west and south of the city, and that they were from ISIL. (AFP/Al Jazeera, 11 June)

Tikrit lies on the strategic Baghdad-Mosul highway, halfway between the two cities. The city is the provincial capital of Salaheddin, the second provincial capital to fall in two days after Mosul, which is the capital of Nineveh, deepening the crisis in Iraq.

AFP, quoting a police officer, reports that the militants had freed 300 inmates from a prison in the city. Yesterday, ISIL freed more than thousands of prisoners in Mosul.

In Mosul, ISIL looted 500 billion dinars ($429 million) from city's branch of Iraqi Central Bank, making it one of the world’s richest terrorist groups.

Meanwhile, ISIL fighters today attacked the city of Kirkuk, home to Iraq’s biggest oil refinery. Also in Samarra, south of Tikrit, witnesses told AFP that that fighters had arrived in trucks mounted with machine guns.

Map: Al Jazeera

5 comments:

Brig. Gen. Basrawi (IQAF.ret) said...

Never before has the situation been as dire as it is now. The entire Iraqi government is in peril. A similar scenario played out back in 2008, but Al-Qaeda was succesfully stopped and driven away with the help of significant assistance from US troops. The future of Iraq hangs in the balance.

Major urban centers to have fallen:

Ramadi
Falluja
Mosul
Tikrit

Major cities that are still contended but are at risk of falling:

Kirkuk
Samara

Anonymous said...

The situation is finished Alghaeda managed to defeat George Bush and Khamenei together and will soon take over Karbala and Najaf. ISIL is the future Khamenei is the past......

Anonymous said...

Ratio of terrorists to army men was 1 to 15. When they were attached they drop their guns and run away. What a brave army!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

as farsnews reported tikrit is in hand of iraq armee ?

Anonymous said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZobkiFNpOSQ --- State Departement: ISIL in Iraq and Syria "Entirely different situations".