ISIS kidnap 100 Sunni tribesmen near Tikrit before its liberation battle starts

Iraqi tribal leaders said that ISIS terrorist organization has kidnapped 100 Sunni tribesmen near Tikrit city, to reduce the risk of potential

opponents ahead of an expected attack by the Iraqi army.

Iraqi forces and Shiite groups loyal to it have mobilized since days ago in preparation for an attack on the stronghold of ISIS along the Tigris River to the north and south of Tikrit city, Saddam Hussein's hometown.

Tikrit, about 150 km north of Baghdad has fallen under the control of militants since ISIS fighters swept large parts of northern Iraq last June and distracted the ranks of the Iraqi army.

Local tribal leaders said that the Islamic state fighters arrested about 42 of Sunni tribesmen in al- Rabadh town on Tuesday on suspicion that they were preparing to fight them.

Hatem al-Obeidi, one of al-Rabadh residents who managed to escape to the Tuz Khurmatu town said "they broke into houses and asked for mobile phones."

"They were checking all the contents of the phones that would show that its owner is against them ", pointing out that “ his mobile phone was returned to him after one of the fighters told him it was "clean".

last week, Abu Karim al-Obeidi, who left Rabadh to the nearby province of Diyala to avoid abduction said that 56 men were arrested after being accused of joining the Sunni pro-government militia.

The fighters established a base in Rabadh, 20 km north of Tikrit town after their military campaign last June, but they withdrew from the town after being raided by an Iraqi army helicopters by mistake on the home of a local sheikhs near their base.

The Iraqi army said that about two thousand Shiite fighters from what is known as the popular crowd gathered in the vicinity of Tikrit, in preparation for a major military operation against ISIS.

Raed al-Jubouri, the governor of Salahuddin in Tikrit city said that five thousand fighters from the army and the crowd that was formed last year, will join the "liberation of Tikrit process."

Witnesses said that the militants fighters blocked the entrances to Tikrit on Wednesday from the south, west and north by walls of concrete resistance to explosions at a height of four meters.

As covered bridge over Tigris River with about meters of sand perhaps absorb shock of bombs.

Witnesses said they saw a convoy of cars, a four-wheel drive heading north towards Mosul city in the north of the country controlled by the organization, they said probably carrying kidnapped people.

Months of air strikes by the United States and its Western and Arab allies have put ISIS organization on the defensive position in a number of regions of the Islamic Caliphate, which was announced in occupied parts of Syria and Iraq.



/129