After a day of back-and-forth reporting on whether the Iraqi city of Tikrit had been recaptured from Islamic State of Iraq and Syria fighters, the Pentagon confirmed late Tuesday that the city had been liberated.
“We can confirm [Iraqi Security Forces’] advancement into Tikrit to liberate the city center as well as other parts of the city from ISIL,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “I refer you to the statement released by Prime Minister Abadi on the situation in Tikrit for further details. The coalition will continue to provide support to the ISF as they continue to operate in the area.”
The statement to which the Defense Department referred was the same one that had posted earlier from Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi congratulating Iraqi Security Forces on their movement into Tikrit’s city center and the re-taking of a provincial government building, where the security forces raised an Iraqi flag.
At the time, the Pentagon saw the advance as progress but could not confirm that Tikrit had been liberated, as Iraq’s prime minister announced earlier in the day.
For just the last week, U.S. and coalition aircraft have been supporting Iraqi Security Forces as they fought several hundred Islamic State fighters there. The entry of the U.S. came only after a lull in progress by Iraqi forces and the Shi’a militias who were supporting them.
The ability to get information on the battle has been hampered by the security situation there for foreign journalists, which makes it far more difficult for a news organization to commit to sending correspondents there.
It is also hampered by the sensitive nature of the relations between the government of Iraq, which has the lead in the operation; the U.S., which has paid for so much of the training and equipment that the Iraqi military now uses; and the government of Iran, which has vested interests in the area and has been operating in Tikrit for weeks at the exclusion of the U.S.
The U.S. entered the air battle on the condition that Shi’a militias loyal to Iran remove themselves from the battlefield.
