Iraqi offensive on Tikrit stalled for third day
 

Islamic State fighters traded sniper fire and mortar rounds with Iraqi troops and allied Shi'ite militia forces on Sunday in the city of Tikrit but ** major advances were made by either side, a military official who returned from the front said. The nearly two-week-old operation to win back the city from the radical Islamist militants occupying large parts of the country's **rth and west been stalled since Friday, when security officials said Iraqi forces and their militia allies would wait for reinforcements before moving forward. "There were ** new pushes today from either side, only scattered skirmishes in the **rthern and southern parts of the city," Colonel Mohammed Abid al-Jubouri told Reuters by phone after visiting the southern edge of Tikrit on Sunday.

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