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IRAQI forces and Shi’ite militias fought fierce battles in the Qadisiyya neighbourhood of Tikrit yesterday as they continued to drive back Islamic State (Isis) fighters.
A “few hundred” members of the genocidal terrorist group were said to be holding out in the city centre, massively outnumbered by the state’s armies.
But progress was slow as troops said thousands of improvised explosive devices littered the city streets.
Military officials claim they will have secured the largely Sunni city — hometown of former dictator Saddam Hussein — in “two or three days.”
Victory there is seen as a vital precursor to retaking Mosul, once Iraq’s second city with a population of three million.
But Iraq’s most senior Shi’ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said despite the vital role they were playing in defeating Isis many Shia militiamen were not even being paid.
“The government should provide care for those who are defending the country with their blood and pay attention to the families who have lost their dear ones and sons,” he said.
“The excuses given for the delays in paying the salaries of the fighters are unacceptable.”
And Sunni preacher Sheik Abdel Sattar Abdul Jabbar, delivering his Friday sermon in Baghdad, said he was concerned about revenge attacks by militias on Sunni civilians in areas liberated from Isis.
Since the US-led invasion in 2003 sectarian attacks by Sunni and Shia extremists on each others’ communities have cost tens of thousands of lives and widespread resentment and distrust of the Shi’ite-dominated government helped
Isis conquer vast swathes of northern and western Iraq last summer, despite only having a few thousand fighters at its disposal.
Responding to reports that Sunni homes were being burned in Tikrit, he said: “We ask that actions follow words to punish those who are attacking houses in Tikrit.
“We are sorry about those acting in revenge that might ignite tribal anger and add to our sectarian problems.”
Isis’s retreat in Tikrit came as the group formally accepted a pledge of allegiance offered it by Nigerian terrorists Boko Haram.
Its self-declared caliphate now “stretched to west Africa” and “no-one can stand in its path,” spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani said.
