Iraqi Army Enters Tikrit, ISIS Retreats

The Iraqi Army has entered the city of Tikrit for the first time in months as they try to dislodge the Islamic State from their defensive fortifications.

The New York Times reports that ISIS still controls two neighborhoods in Tikrit after a week of fighting between ISIS, the Iraqi Army, and Iraqi and Iranian backed militias. The military's progress has been slowed by the countless traps ISIS set as it retreated.

As the Iraqi government forces pushed their way into the city they found evidence of the barbarity that has been a defining feature of ISIS. Upon entering one part of Tikrit, they found a mass grave of between 300 and 400 bodies.

Even as ISIS lost ground in Tikrit, the group tried to open another front and keep the pressure on Iraqi forces with a shocking campaign of car bombings in the city of Ramadi. The Times reports that as many as 21 car bombs may have been detonated by ISIS as they assaulted the city.

It appears as though the Iraqis were ready for the attack however. The Iraqis contend that only five people died in the bombings, although they admit that dozens were injured.

Tikrit's demographics mean that the city will be a test of if the Iraqi government is truly able to overcome its sectarian divisions. The city is predominantly Sunni, and the forces fighting to take control of it are Shia. If the Shia militias commit atrocities against the Sunni population in retribution for the crimes of ISIS, then it will be nearly impossible to get Iraq's Sunnis to agree to participate in the Iraqi government.

There are already reports that the Shia militias have beheaded enemy combatants and burned down Sunni villages.