Iraqi forces are continuing their offensive *IN the city of Tikrit,... making crucial gains as they push through to the city center.<br />If they are successful in taking back the city,… it will be a psychologically important victory... in the struggle to push back Islamic State militants in Iraq.<br />Kim Min-ji reports. <br />Iraqi security forces and militias pushed toward major landmarks in the city of Tikrit on Wednesday,... in their biggest offensive so far against the group that calls itself Islamic State.<br />Joint Iraqi forces raised the national flag above a military hospital,... one of the latest installations retaken from the militants.<br />Soldiers took out snipers and had to defuse roadside bombs and booby-trapped buildings.<br />Citing the head of a key paramilitary force,... CNN reports that government troops are now in control of 75 percent of the city.<br />Tikrit, the hometown of former dictator Saddam Hussein,... was seized by Islamic State militants last June in a lightning advance.<br />The military offensive that began early this month, includes a combined force of up to 30-thousand troops.<br />If Iraqi forces regain full control of the city,... it will give them the momentum to retake the Islamic State-held city of Mosul,... which is ten times bigger than Tikrit.<br /><br />In an apparent retaliatory move, Islamic State militants launched a fierce assault in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi.<br />It involved more than a dozen suicide car bomb attacks.<br />Kim Min-ji, Arirang News.
