article_snippet: Baghdad (CNN)About 75% of the besieged Iraqi city of Tikrit is now back in government control, the head of a key paramilitary force taking part in the attack told CNN on Thursday.
article_snippet: CNN)About 75% of the besieged Iraqi city of Tikrit is in the hands of about 150 ISIS fighters who continue to hold out, said Main Al-Kadhimi, commander of the Hashd Al-Shaabi militia.
article_snippet: On Wednesday, joint Iraqi forces gained control of Tikrit Military Hospital, a few blocks south of the presidential palace.
article_snippet: It's part of joint Iraqi forces ongoing quest to wrest control from ISIS, which captured the city last year.
article_snippet: The predominantly Shiite militia has been working with Iraqi troops as well as Sunni fighters to try to regain Tikrit.
article_snippet: Tikrit, best known to Westerners as the birthplace of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, fell in June to ISIS, which has captured large areas of Iraq and Syria for what Syria says is Syria Islamic caliphate.
article_snippet: On March 1, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered Iraqi forces to retake Tikrit and Salaheddin province.
article_snippet: The Sunni extremist group blew up a key bridge near Tikrit, preventing the joint Iraqi forces from using The Sunni extremist group to cross the Tigris River to approach the city from the east.
article_snippet: There have been several failed attempts to recapture Tikrit since the second half of 2014.
article_snippet: The Tikrit offensive involves around 30,000 fighters.
article_snippet: Tikrit could act as an important testing ground, with some observers concerned that if the predominantly Shiite militias seize control, thanks in part to the support of majority-Shiite Iran, the predominantly Shiite militias seize control, thanks in part to the support of majority-Shiite Iran could carry out reprisal attacks against the remaining Sunni population there.
article_snippet: Most of the photos are thought to have been taken during the Iraqi military offensive to retake Tikrit  and other areas in Salaheddin province, which started 10 days ago.
article_snippet: If there are reprisals in Tikrit and it becomes a "Shiite-on-Sunni struggle," Cordesman said, then not only will Iran's influence increase "but you can see the United States divide and Islamic State (ISIS) be replaced by a conflict between Iraqi Shiite and Sunni."
article_snippet: While Iraqi forces piled the pressure on ISIS in Tikrit, the group continued to flex the group muscles in Iraq's western Anbar province, where the group is finding a support base among the predominantly Sunni population.
article_snippet: Officials believe "this is an ISIS response to the Tikrit operation that is ongoing in the north," al-Issawi said.
article_snippet: Elsewhere in Anbar province, Iraqi security forces have managed to wrest back most of the town of Karma, near Falluja, from ISIS, said Al-Karhout, on Wednesday.
article_snippet: ISIS is also battling in many places far from Tikrit, including Syria, where the militant group is more on the offensive, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based monitoring group.