Iraq launches effort retake Tikrit
BAGHDAD – Backed by Iranian-supported Shiite militias, Iraqi forces launched a large-scale offensive Monday to retake Saddam Hussein’s hometown from the Islamic State group, the first in a series of campaigns to try to reclaim large parts of northern Iraq from the Sunni extremists.
Previous attempts to capture the symbolic city have failed, and hours into Monday’s operation, the military said it still hadn’t entered Tikrit, indicating a long battle lies ahead. Retaking it will help Iraqi forces secure a major supply link for any future operation to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city which has been under militant rule since June.
State-run Al-Iraqiya television said that forces were attacking from different directions, backed by artillery and airstrikes by Iraqi fighter jets. It said the militants were dislodged from some areas outside the city, but several hours into the operation, it gave no additional details.
Tikrit, the provincial capital of Salauhddin province, 80 miles north of Baghdad, fell to the Islamic State group last summer, along with Mosul and other areas in the country’s Sunni heartland.
Spain reveals 3rd Greek bailout
MADRID – Spain created hours of confusion over the future of Greece’s troubled finances Monday by announcing that eurozone nations were negotiating a third Greek bailout of up to 50 billion euros, equivalent to about $56 billion, then backtracking by saying the prospect of such a bailout is merely hypothetical.
The high-profile sequence of events began when Spain’s Economy Ministry said Minister Luis de Guindos declared at a conference in the northern city of Pamplona that a new bailout for Greece could provide between 30 billion euros and 50 billion euros.
Its “central scenario for Greece is a deal on the basis of the current bailout, and new conditions to be set with flexibility,” de Guindos said in comments circulated by the ministry to media outlets clearly stating that a round of negotiations were underway for a third Greek bailout.
But the eurozone’s top financial official quickly denied the claim that fresh bailout talks were underway.
The bailout that de Guindos outlined “is not something that is being discussed,” said Simone Boitelle, the spokeswoman for Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who is both finance minister for the Netherlands and chairman of the Eurogroup body of eurozone members of which de Guindos is a member.
Woman: I didn’t see Putin critic’s killer
MOSCOW – The 23-year-old Ukrainian model who was with slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov tearfully recounted Monday their last dinner in a chic Red Square restaurant and their walk onto a nearby bridge – but said she did not see the gunman who pulled the trigger.
The emotional account by Anna Duritskaya came amid a swirl of speculation about who was responsible for the high-profile assassination and what it means for Russia.
While state-run and Kremlin-controlled media focused on a theory that the killing was a provocation aimed at staining President Vladimir Putin, his critics are holding the Russian leader responsible for creating an atmosphere that encouraged the crime by fanning nationalist, anti-Western sentiments and vilifying the opposition.
Duritskaya said she has been questioned extensively by authorities. Shortly after midnight Tuesday, she flew into an international airport in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, from where she was swiftly whisked away by a security detail in a car with blacked-out windows.
Washington Post, Associated Press
