Iraqi forces closing in on Tikrit in key offensive

WASHINGTON — Iraqi army and Shiite militia forces entered Tikrit on Wednesday, driving the Islamic State from the key Sunni city north of Baghdad.
Iraqi forces breached the city, about 80 miles north of Baghdad, through a northern neighborhood amid signs militants were fleeing.
"The terrorists are seizing the cars of civilians trying to leave the city, and they are trying to make a getaway," police Brig. Kheyon Rasheed told the state-run Iraqiyya television, according to the Associated Press.
In the past, Islamic State militants have planted roadside bombs and rigged buildings to explode to slow the advance of their adversaries. It was not clear what resistance Iraqi forces were facing.
U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said top U.S. military officials are watching the operation closely to see if Iranian-backed Shiite militias carry out acts of retribution against Sunnis remaining in the city. Such a move would heighten sectarian conflict and undermine American efforts to support Iraq's Shiite-dominated government.
How the Shiite militias, which make up the vast majority of forces involved in the Tikrit operation, behave after the militants are defeated will shed light on future operations to reclaim other cities captured by the Islamic State, he added.
"The question is what comes after," Dempsey said. "The Tikrit operation will be a strategic inflection point one way or the other."
Dempsey made the comments Wednesday while testifying at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on a proposal to authorize the use of military force against the Islamic State.
The U.S. military, which has conducted more than 1,500 airstrikes against the Islamic State throughout Iraq since August and is training Iraqi army forces, is sitting out the Tikrit operation.
About 20,000 Shiite militiamen are participating in the offensive, Dempsey said. Only a single Iraqi army brigade, about 3,000 soldiers, is involved. About 1,000 Sunni tribesmen and 200 Iraqi military counterterrorism troops are also engaged there.
Iran has trained and equipped the militias and provided artillery and military support, including advisers, the Pentagon has said.
Tikrit was the hometown of Saddam Hussein, the dictator who was deposed by a U.S.-led attack in 2003 and later executed.