Word: tikrit
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...seize all of these key positions unassisted. Staff officers planned a new mission: to drive up behind the 3rd ID and, from positions southwest of Baghdad, launch air assaults to the north of the capital. This would isolate Baghdad from the four Republican Guard divisions deployed around Mosul and Tikrit. That mission never happened, either...
...violence. Even in Baghdad, a handful of demonstrators gathered for an anti-American demonstration outside the Palestine Hotel, scene of last week's widely televised toppling of Saddam's statue. Further north in Kirkuk, forced expulsion of Arab Iraqis by armed Kurds continued, and near Saddam's hometown of Tikrit heavily armed local tribesmen fought fierce gun battles with marauding groups of Kurdish bandits. And in the southern town of al-Kut, a local Shiite leader and his supporters have taken control of city hall, and U.S. forces moving into the city have been greeted by protesting crowds chanting...
...Tikrit went like so many of the Iraqi centers of power - it caved in on itself. Even while the international media reported a buildup of hardcore units - the Republican Guard and similar elite formations - the defenders of Tikrit were planning to leave. "They left three days ago," said Ahmed, who lived near military bases on the edge of the city. "They abandoned everything they had and went home." Other Tikritis coming out of the city say that all the elite structures of the Saddam regime have disintegrated. If Saddam or his close associates were in the city they gave...
There are preliminary indications that the leadership within Tikrit is looking for a way to avoid a coalition frontal attack. Kurdistan Democratic Party Peshmerga guerrillas who say they were operating 5 kilometers outside of Tikrit City report they were approached this afternoon by an emissary from the Sheik of the Juburi Clan, one of the largest tribes in the Tikrit area. The Sheik allegedly sent word to Massoud Basani, the leader of the KDP, that he and his supporters wished to surrender, but would only do so on personal assurances from Basani. The officer who received this message...
...Juburi surrendered it would not mean that the whole of Tikrit would follow suit, but it would be an interesting indicator of deep anxiety and an unwillingness to fight coming from a fairly powerful social component of the city. The move would also be in line with the general mood in this area, which theoretically should be populated by pro-Saddam supporters...