A Shi’a fighter known as Hashid Shaabi, runs as smoke rises from an explosives-laden military vehicle driven by an “Islamic State” suicide bomber which exploded during an attack on the southern edge of Tikrit, March 12.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces and mainly Shi’a militia fought “Islamic State” fighters in Tikrit on Thursday, a day after they pushed into Saddam Hussein’s home city in their biggest offensive yet against the militants.

A source at the military command said there was heavy mortar shelling, sniper and machine-gun fire in the industrial quarter in the northwest of the city. Three IS insurgents were killed but the army and militias struggled to advance from parts of the city, which they took 24 hours earlier.

IS fighters stormed into Tikrit last June during a lightning offensive that was halted just outside Baghdad. They have since used the complex of palaces built in Tikrit under Saddam, the executed former president, as their headquarters.

The military source said the insurgents still held the presidential complex and at least three other districts in the center of Tikrit, holding up further army advances with snipers and bombs. A Reuters photographer saw one car bomb explode on the western edge of the city, and security officials said IS fighters had booby-trapped abandoned buildings.

Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeidi said on a visit to the front lines on Thursday that operations were going to plan, despite the lack of apparent progress on Thursday while the combined army and militia forces consolidated their positions.

“Now the second page of the battle commences,” he told state television Iraqiya. “All the branches of the security forces are engaged in the battle as well as tribal fighters and the Hashid Shaabi (Popular Mobilization),” he said, referring to the militia forces.

If Iraq’s government retakes Tikrit, it would be the first city clawed back from the insurgents and would give it momentum in the next, pivotal stage of the campaign to recapture Mosul, the largest city in the north.

More than 20,000 Iraqi troops and Iranian-backed Shi’a militias, supported by local Sunni tribes, launched the offensive for Tikrit 10 days ago, advancing from the east and along the banks of the Tigris.

On Tuesday, they took the town of al-Alam on the northern edge of Tikrit, paving the way for an attack on the city itself.

North of Tikrit, the militants blew up al-Fatha bridge linking the north-south highway along the Tigris river with the IS-held town of Hawijah to the north-east. They erected barricades and gathered 20 vehicles by the blown up bridge, an official at the Salahuddin province operations command said.

The insurgents have also fought back elsewhere in Iraq, launching 13 suicide car bombs against army positions on Wednesday in Ramadi, about 55 miles west of Baghdad.

On Wednesday night they captured a bridge over the Euphrates river in Ramadi and attacked an army position with two booby-trapped armored vehicles, a member of a local Sunni tribal movement said.

At least 22 Iraqi soldiers were killed in a blast in Anbar on Wednesday, Iraqi security sources said. An Iraqi military officer blamed the explosion on an air strike carried out by U.S.-led coalition forces, but a U.S. official said the only coalition attack was miles from the site of the blast.

In the north, Kurdish Peshmerga forces captured Mariam Pek, Kubaiba and al-Murra villages, between 15-20 miles south of Kirkuk, from “Islamic State” after heavy clashes that erupted early on Thursday, Peshmerga sources said.

The United States is concerned over reports that Shi’a militia have set fire to homes as they advance into Tikrit, said U.S. officials, but they have not confirmed cases of abuse during the major offensive.

“What we know is that there are houses on fire,” said one U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The top U.S. military officer, General Martin Dempsey, told Congress this week he had “no doubt” the Iran-backed militia and Iraqi security forces would retake Tikrit. But he voiced concerns about treatment of Sunnis there. 

-Reuters, TAAN