Closing in on victory: Iraqi forces say they’ll liberate Tikrit ‘within 72 hours’

Iraqi forces besieging dozens of die-hard jihadists from the Islamic State group in Tikrit will have liberated the city within three days, a government spokesman said Saturday. He added that the last IS fighters are holed up in the city center, “surrounded from all sides.” The battle started with thousands of Iraqi fighters surrounding a few hundred IS holdouts, but is now down to between 60 and 70, as Iraqi forces pounded jihadist positions with helicopter and artillery strikes, but trying to avoid the thousands of bombs littering the city center.

We are surrounding the gunmen in the city centre. We’re advancing slowly due to the great number of IEDs (improvised explosive devices).

An Iraqi police colonel

Massively outnumbered, the jihadists are defending themselves with a network of booby traps, roadside bombs and snipers, with suicide attackers occasionally ramming car bombs into enemy targets. The government says it will only announce the liberation of Tikrit once a path has been cleared through the thousands of bombs the jihadists have planted to defend the city.

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