Joint Iraqi forces push into Islamic State-held Tikrit

Iraqi forces are continuing their offensive *IN the city of Tikrit,... making crucial gains as they push through to the city center.
If they are successful in taking back the city,… it will be a psychologically important victory... in the struggle to push back Islamic State militants in Iraq.
Kim Min-ji reports.
Iraqi security forces and militias pushed toward major landmarks in the city of Tikrit on Wednesday,... in their biggest offensive so far against the group that calls itself Islamic State.
Joint Iraqi forces raised the national flag above a military hospital,... one of the latest installations retaken from the militants.
Soldiers took out snipers and had to defuse roadside bombs and booby-trapped buildings.
Citing the head of a key paramilitary force,... CNN reports that government troops are now in control of 75 percent of the city.
Tikrit, the hometown of former dictator Saddam Hussein,... was seized by Islamic State militants last June in a lightning advance.
The military offensive that began early this month, includes a combined force of up to 30-thousand troops.
If Iraqi forces regain full control of the city,... it will give them the momentum to retake the Islamic State-held city of Mosul,... which is ten times bigger than Tikrit.

In an apparent retaliatory move, Islamic State militants launched a fierce assault in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi.
It involved more than a dozen suicide car bomb attacks.
Kim Min-ji, Arirang News.