Operation Featherweight: Month 8, Week 2, Day 1.

On Monday (2/3/15) the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) launched an operation to liberate the city of Tikrit - 150km (90 miles) north of the capital Baghdad - from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The first phase of this operation has involved moving Iraqi forces into position to the north, west and south of the city. The Tigris river to the east of course provides a natural barrier cutting Tikrit off.

The operations to the north and the west have been swift and successful with the Iraqi forces now in position to launch an assault on the city itself. However they are now really waiting for the operation to the south to catch up. Yesterday (6/3/15) ISF entered the town of Al-Dour which sits around 13km (8 miles) to the south of Tikrit. Progress on this southern front has been slowed right down by a vast number of landmines and Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's). I think on one 8km (5 miles) stretch of road leading into Al-Dour the ISF had to stop every 80 metres (87 yards) to clear explosives.

Although I don't want to detract from the operation because both sides are sustaining casualties amid artillery and sniper fire and ISIL on Thursday (5/3/15) set fire to the Ajeel oilfields to provide a smoke screen the battle for Tikrit has not yet seen the type of high intensity fighting we saw in say Kobane. Instead ISIL seem focused on slowing down the ISF's advance in order to buy them time to slip away from Tikrit.

On Monday when the operation began there were reports of the senior ISIL leadership in Tikrit immediately fleeing towards Mosul - 180km (108 miles) to the north. In the last few days there have also been reports of intercepted radio messages instructing Iraqi ISIL members in and around Tikrit to shave off their Islamist beards, dump their military equipment and melt away into the local population many of whom have begun to leave Tikrit in preparation for the liberation operation on the instructions of the ISF.

Therefore it seems to me that although a contingent of foreign fighters which remains in Tikrit will try and make a fight of it ISIL intends to let Tikrit fall quite easily. Then once the liberation operation has been completed and ISF's attention has shifted to other towns and cities ISIL will launch a traditional type insurgency against Tikrit with suicide bombings and gun attacks against ISF personnel within the city. As with in Egypt the purpose of these attacks will be to provoke the security forces into a violent response against the local population. ISIL operatives in the area will then try and claim this response as Shia oppression in the hope of leading a Sunni rebellion which will again allow ISIL to take control of the city.

As such it is vitally important that the Iraqi forces keep the local residents of Tikrit on their side both during the liberation operation and its aftermath. For example they will need help from the local residents to identify ISIL fighters who have melted into the background in the hope of evading capture.

This brings me on to perhaps the only aspect of the operation that the western media seem interested in - the Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF) which is an umbrella of Shia militias that make up part of the Iraqi forces aiming to liberate Tikrit. As militias are rarely as disciplined as a professional army and in combat situations people's tempers often boil over there is some concern that in the past the PMF have carried out revenge attacks against Sunni civilians in areas they have liberated from ISIL. It must be said though that the accusations against the PMF have been overstated.

For example the only evidence of wrongdoing that has been uncovered during the Tikrit operation is a video of PMF fighters summarily executing an ISIL fighter they'd captured. However immediately before the shooting the majority of the PMF fighters are seen trying to protect the prisoner and immediately after the shooting they are seen remonstrating with the individual who carried out the killing.

The PMF and all of the ISF will though need to be exceptionally careful in the way they treat Sunnis from now on because ISIL have already claimed that the presence of Shia troops in the battle of Tikrit is a sign that the apocalyptic war between Sunnis and Shias that they crave has already begun. Mind you ISIL then went on to claim that the battle of Tikrit is already over, they won and all the defeated Shia soldiers have been buried in mass graves.

The reason why the western media and the US in particular has been so critical of the PMF is that somewhere amongst all the - frankly - bullsh*t surrounding the insurgency in Syria the US administration has for some reason fully accepted the Saudi Whabbist interpretation of Islam as the one true version of Islam and considers all Shias as infidels and enemies. The US has also made the mistake of viewing all Shias as Iranians who are considered Saudi Arabia's mortal enemy. As a result the US' role in this now seven month operation has been to dither and delay in the hope of putting all Shia Arabs in the region under intense pressure.

Funnily enough Iraq's Shia-Arabs have not been so happy to sit back and watch as ISIL lay waste to their country so have started looking away from the US towards anyone who is actually prepared to defeat ISIL including their Persian neighbour Iran. As such it is Iran rather then the US-led coalition that is playing the supporting role in the Tikrit operation. Although that level of Iranian support is relatively small limited only really to tactical advice the US is not at all happy about the Tikrit operation.

In fact given the effort they seem to be putting into smearing it I think secretly the US would like to see the Tikrit operation fail rather then having it turn into an example of how easy it is for the Iraqis to force ISIL from territory they hold.

16:30 on 7/3/15 (UK date).