In a show of overt battlefield tactical brilliance, ISIL has stalled an Iranian-led offensive to capture the strategic city of Tikrit from them. In a series of brutal and ferocious battlefield engagements, ISIL was able to bear down heavily on the assorted Shiite coalition and in the process they were able to kill over 3,000 Shiite fighters.
The Tikrit offensive was launched by Shiite-dominated forces made up of approximately 10, 000 Iraqi Army troops backed by 20,000 Shiite militiamen.
ISIL was able to disable or decommission entire fighting units during the battle of Tikrit. The Iraqi army personnel showcased their cowardice by abruptly fleeing the battlefield thus exposing their Shiite comrades to brutal ISIL advances. It is the disintegration of the Iraqi army at the battlefield which threw their entire Tikrit offensive into disarray as Iraqi army commanders suddenly realized that they had been abandoned by their comrades in the battlefield.
The Iranians are quite upset about the turn of events, especially the fact that ISIL still controls a significant portion of Tikrit. Furthermore, ISIL resilience in Tikrit has greatly embarrassed both the Iranian and American military commanders who had grandiloquently predicted that ISIL will be easily pushed out Tikrit by the Iranian-led offensive. Besides, the Americans had counted on ISIL defeat in Tikrit as a prelude for the grand counter-terrorism operations that would eventually push ISIL out of Iraq.
