BAGHDAD -- Iraqi soldiers and allied Shiite militiamen swept into the Islamic State-held city of Tikrit on Wednesday, launching a two-front offensive to squeeze the extremists out of Saddam Hussein's hometown.
Explosions and heavy gunfire echoed through Tikrit, a key way station for Iraqi forces trying to expel the militants who hold roughly a third of the country and of neighboring Syria. The offensive will serve as a major crucible for the Iraqi military, which collapsed under the Sunni extremists' initial offensive last year.
Iraqi forces first entered the city through its northern Qadisiyya neighborhood, according to video obtained by The Associated Press. Overhead, an attack helicopter fired missiles as soldiers and militiamen laid down heavy machine-gun fire.
Officials quickly established a supply line through the neighborhood to reinforce troops, Salahuddin province police Brig. Kheyon Rasheed told the state-run Iraqiyya television. Authorities offered no immediate casualty figures, though Iran's state-run Press TV satellite channel reported a mortar attack wounded one of its cameramen there.
An official in Iraq's Salahuddin province confirmed that Iraqi troops entered Qadisiyya and raised the Iraqi flag over Tikrit's general hospital. He spoke on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorized to brief journalists.
Later Wednesday, allied forces also swept into Tikrit from the south in an attempt to squeeze out militants, though it appeared many had fled in the face of the advance, code-named "At your service, prophet of Allah."
"The terrorists are seizing the cars of civilians trying to leave the city and they are trying to make a getaway," Rasheed said.
As the pro-government forces continued to consolidate their hold on the area around Tikrit, they also uncovered two mass graves, which were believed to hold the remains of some of the more than 1,000 Shiite Iraqi soldiers from Camp Speicher who were massacred by the Islamic State last summer.
Tikrit, the capital of Salahuddin province, sits on the Tigris River about 80 miles north of Baghdad. Several of Saddam's palaces remain there, as do remnants of his now-outlawed Baathist Party. Many believe party members assisted the Islamic State in its offensive last summer.
Naim al-Aboudi, the spokesman for one of the main Shiite militias that had taken the area, said health officials had been notified and were to remove the remains soon. The spokesman for Asa'ab Ahl al-Haq said photographs of the sites and remains had already been sent to Baghdad's central morgue.
"I'm calling all those who lost their boys in this mass grave to go to the morgue and see if they can identify them from their clothes or their faces," he said.
Al-Aboudi said Sunni residents of the village of Albu Ajeel, south of Tikrit, had led militiamen and security forces to the mass graves, and some said they had seen young men taken from Speicher later buried there.
"This battle today has proved to the world that the Sunnis and Shia are united," he said.
Some Sunni residents in areas held by the Islamic State have said that they would welcome the Shiite militias if they rid them of the militants' harsh rule. Community leaders said that a victory without abuses in its wake could help reduce tensions between the sects.
Taking Tikrit would open a supply line for a future operation to besiege Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, which remains under Islamic State control. U.S. military officials have said a mission to retake Mosul likely will begin in April or May and involve up to 25,000 Iraqi troops. But the Americans have cautioned the offensive could be delayed.
Iranian military advisers have been helping guide Iraqi forces in their advance on Tikrit. Speaking Wednesday on Capitol Hill, U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey described the militias as "Iranian trained and somewhat Iranian equipped."
Among those directing operations is Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force.
In an attempt to allay Arab concerns about his country's role in the region, Iranian parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said Wednesday that Tehran's assistance has prevented more countries from being threatened by Islamic State terrorism. He said Iraq's government had sought his country's help.
Most battlefield successes in Iraq have been coordinated efforts, with Iraqi and Kurdish forces and Shiite militias fighting on the ground and the U.S.-led coalition providing air power. But the U.S. said its coalition has not been involved in the Tikrit offensive.
The siege on the village of Amirli just north of Baghdad was broken last year with the help of U.S.-led airstrikes and a fighting force of mainly Shiite militias. Shiite militiamen backed by a coalition air campaign also retook the town of Jurf al-Sukhr, on Baghdad's outskirts, in October.
Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has appealed for more aid for his country's beleaguered ground forces, though the U.S. spent billions of dollars training and equipping Iraq's army during its eight-year occupation.
A senior U.S. military official told the AP that as of June 2014, the Iraqi military stood at 125,000 men at best, down from 205,000 in January 2014.
Iraqi officials said at least 30,000 men -- including the military, militias, Sunni tribes and police -- were fighting to recapture Tikrit. Dempsey said Wednesday that at least 20,000 militiamen were taking part.
Despite the Tikrit offensive, Islamic State fighters struck back on other fronts in Syria and Iraq, carrying out a series of suicide car bombings against Iraqi military positions in the western city of Ramadi, in Anbar province.
At least 13 suicide car bombs exploded almost simultaneously, killing two soldiers and wounding eight, said Sabah Karhout, head of the Anbar provincial council.
About 300 U.S. military advisers are stationed at the al-Asad air base, also in Anbar.
The Islamic State said in an online statement that it used fighters from Australia, Belgium, Syria and Uzbekistan in the Ramadi attacks Wednesday.
In Syria, Islamic State militants opened an offensive against the predominantly Kurdish town of Ras al-Ayn on the Syrian-Turkish border, according to a Kurdish official and an activist group.
Kurdish Democratic Union Party spokesman Nawaf Khalil described the Islamic State's attack as "wide-scale and powerful."
A car bomb also exploded in a Shiite neighborhood of northern Baghdad, killing seven people and wounding 18, authorities said. No one immediately claimed responsibility for that attack.
Information for this article was contributed by Sameer N. Yacoub, Vivian Salama, Deb Riechmann, Abdullah Rebhy and Amir Vahdat of The Associated Press; by Erin Cunningham, Mustafa Salim and Brian Murphy of The Washington Post; and by Anne Barnard, Falih Hassan, Ahmed Salah and staff members of The New York Times.
A Section on 03/12/2015