Salahuddin campaign
| Salahuddin campaign | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the War in Iraq (2013-2017) and the Military intervention against ISIL | |||||||||
A map of the Salahuddin Province, located in north-central Iraq, north of the capital city of Baghdad | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
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United States United Kingdom Canada France | Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Haidar al-Abadi Khaled Obeidi General Ayub Khalif † Saleh Jaber Akram al-Kaabi Hadi Al-Amiri Qasem Soleimani Barack Obama David Cameron (until 2016) Theresa May (from 2016) Stephen Harper (until 2015) Justin Trudeau (from 2015) François Hollande |
Abu Ayman al-Iraqi † (Head of Military Shura) Abu Muslim al-Turkmani † (Deputy, Iraq) Abu Nabil al-Anbari † (ISIL Governor of the Saladin Governorate) Abu Maria † (Top ISIL leader in Tikrit) | ||||||||
| Units involved | |||||||||
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Iraqi Armed Forces United States Air Force French Air Force |
Anti-Government fighters | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 20,000–30,000+ | 14,000+ | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
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Several thousand killed or executed 4,000+ captured | 6,000+ killed | ||||||||
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46 civilians killed 28,000 civilians displaced 28,000 civilians displaced 100 civilians abducted by ISIL | |||||||||
The Salahuddin campaign was a military conflict in the Saladin Governorate (Salahuddin Governorate), located in north-central Iraq, involving various factions (both internal & external) fighting against a single common enemy, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The province exited Iraqi government control during ISIL's Northern Iraq offensive (June 2014) when large swathes of the north of the country were captured by the militant group with the Iraqi national army quickly disintegrating in the path of its advance. In light of the sweeping gains of the militants, Nouri Al-Maliki, the Prime Minister of Iraq at that time, attempted to declare a state of emergency though the Iraqi Parliament blocked his efforts to do so.
The cities of Baiji and Tikrit (Saddam Hussein's birthplace and stronghold) fell to ISIS and the group even reached the city of Samarra itself but could not wrest control of it due to the resistance it encountered by the Iraqi security forces in conjunction with the Shi'ite paramilitaries. Both the United States and Iran intervened in order to stem the tide against ISIS and were relatively successful in the breaking of the Siege of Amirli in which both parties played a significant role (however they did not and still do not officially cooperate or coordinate their respective efforts with one another). Although in the First Battle of Tikrit ISIS consolidated their control over the city and strongly repulsed any attempts at its recapture by Iraqi security forces and militia contingents.
After months of preparatory maneuvers and intelligence gathering, a force of over 23,000 allied fighters including the Iraqi armed forces, Shi'ite private militias and Sunni tribal militias began an offensive in early March to encircle ISIL and entrap their fighters in Tikrit and its environs in the Second Battle of Tikrit. The operation met with decisive success, with all the ISIL militants being encircled and subsequently killed or captured in Tikrit.