Iraqi troops and Shiite Muslim militia entered the center of Tikrit on Wednesday, the state run media reported, setting the stage for a major victory against Islamic State militants.
Al Iraqiya, the nation's semi-official news service, quoted an anonymous security source saying that the troops and militiamen had raised Iraqi flags on government buildings in the northern city amid cheers and rounds of celebratory gunfire.
Salahuddin police Brig. Kheyon Rasheed also told Al Iraqiya that "the terrorists are seizing the cars of civilians trying to leave the city and they are trying to make a getaway," the Associated Press reported.
There was no immediate independent confirmation of the reports. But loyalist forces numbering more than 25,000 launched an all-out attack on the city last week and had previously advanced into its outskirts.
Tikrit, hometown of former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, is situated about 80 miles north of Baghdad, the capital. It has considerable strategic and symbolic importance for control of northern Iraq.
The fact that Shiite militiamen closely aligned with Iran are playing a major role in the attack raised fears of a sectarian backlash. Tikrit is a largely Sunni Muslim city and the center of Sunni tribal culture in Salahuddin province.
The U.S. military, which has been carrying out airstrikes against Islamic State fighters in Iraq for eight months, reportedly has largely been on the sidelines in the fight for Tikrit.
Islamic State, an extremist Sunni group, overran the city in June as its forces advanced across much of the Sunni heartland of northern and western Iraq.
The attack on Tikrit has been widely viewed as a dry run for an offensive to retake the much larger city of Mosul, almost 150 miles farther north along the Tigris River. Islamic State has declared Mosul as a hub of its so-called caliphate stretching across parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria.
Follow @mcdneville on Twitter for news out of the Middle East
Copyright © 2015, Los Angeles Times9 a.m.: This article has been updated throughout with new details.
The article was originally published at 7:45 a.m.
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