U.S. Air Strikes Trigger Final Push on Iraq's Tikrit

Iraqi forces buoyed by the first U.S.-led coalition air strikes on Tikrit made a final push Thursday to flush diehard jihadists out of Saddam Hussein's hometown.

U.S.-led warplanes carried out 17 air strikes against Islamic State jihadists in Tikrit overnight in the first wave of coalition bombing raids in support of an Iraqi government offensive to recapture the town, the U.S. military said Thursday.

U.S. and allied fighter jets, bombers and drones struck a building, two bridges, three checkpoints, two "staging areas," berms, an IS "roadblock" and an IS command facility, the U.S. military command in charge of the air campaign said in a statement. 

"The ongoing Iraqi and Coalition air strikes are setting the conditions for offensive action to be conducted by Iraqi forces currently surrounding Tikrit," Lieutenant General James Terry, commander of the coalition war effort, said in a statement.

"Iraqi Security Forces supported by the Coalition will continue to gain territory from Daesh," said Terry, using the Arabic acronym for the IS group.

Pentagon officials said the air strikes would continue in Tikrit, and France said it had joined in the bombing raids.

The United States announced on Wednesday it had launched air strikes to back up Iraqi security forces whose bid to retake Tikrit has stalled over the past week.

The Iraqi government made a belated request for U.S. air power after having relied initially only on Iranian advice and assistance, which had raised concerns in Washington about the role of its longtime adversary.

A U.S. official told Agence France-Presse on Wednesday that President Barack Obama approved the Tikrit air raids on the condition that Iraqi government forces be given a larger role in the assault, instead of Iranian-backed Shiite militias.

Washington had been reluctant to get directly involved in a battle in which Iran-backed militias have taken the lead but the Pentagon seemed keen to reassert itself as Baghdad's chief partner in the war against the Islamic State group.

The tussle for influence over Iraq came as Washington and Tehran began fresh nuclear talks and also as Iran's regional rival Saudi Arabia launched air strikes in Yemen.

The U.S.-backed air campaign against Shiite minority rebels in Yemen was announced by the Saudi ambassador in Washington and condemned by Tehran.

The operation to retake Tikrit was launched on March 2 but had failed to dislodge a relatively small number of IS fighters who have hemmed themselves in with thousands of bombs for a last stand in the city center.

"The assault on the last (IS-held) pocket of Tikrit started from the southern front, in Awja," said a brigadier general from the military headquarters in Salaheddin province, of which Tikrit is the capital.

He said Iraqi forces were also attacking from the west and north and were repairing a bridge over the Tigris that IS recently blew up to pile further pressure from the east.

The forces involved in the fighting include the volunteer Popular Mobilization units, Shiite militia groups, the army's counter-terrorism force as well as interior ministry units.

Iraqi air strikes had, by Baghdad's own admission, not been efficient and accurate enough to break the back of IS resistance.

"Now the operation to take Tikrit really begins," one U.S. defense official told Agence France Presse.

- 'Reliable' partner - 

Lieutenant General James Terry, who oversees the command in charge of the U.S. war effort, said precision strikes would save "innocent Iraqi lives while minimizing collateral damage to infrastructure."

The exact number of civilians trapped inside Tikrit is unclear but a Red Crescent spokesman last week said "no more than 30,000, probably quite a bit less."

Other countries in the 60-nation U.S.-led coalition were taking part in the strikes but officials did not specify which ones.

Washington had expressed strong reservations over the leading role played in the Tikrit operation by Shiite militia groups, some of which have been accused of serious abuses.

Iran's top commander in charge of external operations, Qassem Suleimani, has been ubiquitous on the Salaheddin front lines and is perceived by many Iraqis as the brain behind Iraq's ground operations.

But at a briefing on Wednesday, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren insisted Washington remained Baghdad's most precious partner in the war to reclaim the vast regions of Iraq IS conquered last summer.

"Reliable, professional, advanced military capabilities are something that very clearly and very squarely reside with the coalition," he said.

State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki also defended the coalition's record in the effort to restore the sovereignty of Iraq, which looked on the brink of breakup nine months ago.

Close to 3,000 strikes have taken out "thousands of fighters, numerous commanders, nearly 1,500 vehicles and tanks, over 100 artillery and mortar positions, and nearly 3,400 fighting positions, training camps, and bunkers in Iraq and Syria," she said.

Groups backed by Iran, which is not part of the coalition, have insisted they do not need U.S. support and some have threatened to pull out of the Tikrit area if coalition strikes were called in.

Washington wants Iraq's regular forces to be the main beneficiaries of its return to the Iraqi theater, which it quit in 2011 after an eight-year occupation.

A U.S. official told AFP that President Barack Obama approved the Tikrit air raids on the condition that Iraqi government forces be given a larger role in the assault.

Tikrit holds both strategic and symbolic importance. 

It was the hometown of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, remnants of whose Baath party collaborated with IS last summer.

And it is seen by military commanders as a key stepping stone to recapturing Iraq's second city Mosul, the jihadists' largest hub.