US-led coalition launches air strikes on Islamic State in Tikrit
US-led coalition warplanes have launched their first air strikes against Islamic State targets in Tikrit, officials said, coming off the sidelines to aid Iraqi forces fighting alongside Iran-backed Shiite militia on the ground.
The decision on Wednesday to give air support to the Tikrit campaign pulls the United States into a messy battle that puts the US-led coalition, however reluctantly, on the same side of a fight as Iranian-backed militia in a bid to support Iraqi forces and opens a new chapter in the war.
It also appeared to represent at least a tacit acknowledgement by Baghdad that such air power was necessary to wrest control of the hometown of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from Islamic State fighters, after its attempts to go it alone stalled.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi said Iraqi forces would prevail with the support of "friendly" countries and the international coalition, including arms, training and aerial support.
"We have opened the last page of the operations," Abadi said on state television.
The US-led coalition has been carrying out strikes elsewhere in Iraq since August.
The mainly Sunni city of Tikrit was seized by Islamic State in the first days of their lightning strike across northern Iraq last June.
If Iraq's Shiite led-government retakes Tikrit, it would be the first city wrested from the Sunni insurgents.
