Assault on Samarra On 4 and 5 June 2014, ISIL militants attacked and captured parts of the city of
Samarra. The ISIL operatives blew up a police station south of Samara overnight, killing several policemen, before they advanced on the city in pick-up trucks, raiding checkpoints along the way. They entered the city from the east and west and quickly captured the municipality building, university and the two largest mosques. The insurgents had reached to within from the
Al-Askari Mosque, which was defended by three security belts. Militants targeted command centres near the shrine. Soon, government reinforcements were sent from Baghdad and the military managed to regain control of the city, pushing militant forces out of Samarra. 12 policemen and several civilians were killed in the fighting, while an army official claimed 80 militants also died.
Fall of Mosul and push into Kirkuk 's offensive in Northern Iraq, June 2014 On 6 June, ISIL attacked Mosul from the northwest and quickly entered the western part of the city. The ISIL forces numbered approximately 1,500, while there were at least 15 times more Iraqi forces. The assault started at 02:30 in the morning when ISIL convoys of pickup trucks advancing from the west shot their way through the two-man checkpoints into the city. By 03:30, street fighting was raging in Mosul. In southern Mosul, five suicide bombers attacked an arms depot killing 11 soldiers. Two suicide bombers also killed six people in the village of Muaffakiya, near Mosul. Heavy fighting continued in the city the next day. Over the two days, 61 militants, 41 government troops and seven civilians were killed. As the militants advanced they seized military vehicles and weapons and reportedly hanged soldiers and lit them ablaze, crucified them, and torched them on the hoods of Humvees. On the western edge of Tamoz 17 neighborhood, police from the Fourth Battalion made a stand against the insurgents as government forces were order to form a defensive line to cordon off the besieged western Mosul neighborhoods from the Tigris River. At the same time, ISIL advanced to the east of Mosul, capturing the
Hawija,
Al Zab, Riyadh, and Abbasi areas west of the city of
Kirkuk, and Rashad and Yankaja to its south after government forces retreated. By this time, insurgents surged into Mosul, sleeper cells hiding in the city had been activated and neighbourhoods rallied to them. The insurgents bombed a police station in the al-Uraybi neighbourhood and charged into the area around the Mosul Hotel, on the western bank of the Tigris, where a battle post was set up for 30 police SWAT members. Four days later, on 13 June, in the eastern part of the province, Kurdish military forces (
Peshmerga) advanced and took the city of Kirkuk, after government forces abandoned their posts in the face of the ISIL offensive, expanding the Kurdish zone of control in Northern Iraq. Kurdish forces then awaited further orders before moving towards the areas controlled by ISIL. A Peshmerga spokesman said, "The whole of Kirkuk has fallen into the hands of Peshmerga, no Iraqi army remains in Kirkuk now." By the afternoon of 9 June on Mosul's front, some 40 members of the Fourth Police Battalion were among the last local police fighting to hold back the jihadists in western Mosul. The rest had either defected or deserted. At 04:30 in the afternoon, a military water tanker, rigged with explosives, raced towards the Mosul Hotel where the policemen were stationed. The subsequent explosion wounded the battalion's commander, Colonel Dhiyab Ahmed al-Assi al-Obeidi, whose leg was ripped open by the blast. Other police officers then transported him by boat across the river. This attack broke the defensive line in the west of the city. The
2nd Division had deserted the city within a few hours and both Ghaidan and Qanbar arrived in Kurdistan the next day. However, after the
takeover of Badush prison near Mosul, ISIL separated and removed the Sunni inmates, while the remaining 670 prisoners were executed. At the end of 10 June, ISIL was considered to be in control of Mosul. On 11 June, ISIL members seized the Turkish consulate in Mosul and kidnapped 48 Turkish citizens including the consul general, three children and several members of the
Turkish Special Forces. Reports suggested the abductees were taken to a nearby militant base and were unharmed. An unnamed Turkish official confirmed the government was in contact with the insurgents, while Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan held an emergency meeting with members of the
National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and Deputy Prime Minister
Beşir Atalay to discuss the situation. The daring assault came a day after 28 Turkish truck drivers were abducted by militants while delivering fuel to a power plant in Mosul. Earlier that day, the governor of
Ninawa Governate,
Atheel al-Nujaifi, accused the military commanders that were in Mosul of abandoning the battlefield and fleeing from the city. The governor demanded that they be tried in a military court. He also stated that it was not just ISIL that captured Mosul but that other small militias had provided support in capturing the city. On 20 September 2014 the hostages captured on 11 June 2014 from the Turkish consulate in Mosul were released. ISIL seized large quantities of US-supplied military equipment. It also freed thousands of prisoners, many of whom are likely to join the insurgency. There were conflicting reports about the east bank of Mosul, which has a significant population of
Assyrians,
Kurds,
Turkmens,
Shabaks and
Armenians, with some suggesting it was controlled by Kurdish Peshmergas while according to others it was ISIL-controlled. Sources within the Iraq government allege that in the months preceding the assault, Ba'ath loyalists led by al-Douri had been in contact with disaffected Sunni officers who either defected or withdrew upon the ISIL-Ba'ath attack. While speaking to the charity
Aid to the Church in Need,
Chaldean Catholic Church Archbishop of Mosul Amel Nona stated "Mosul's last remaining Christians had left now a city which until 2003 was home to 35,000 faithful."
Conquest of Baiji and Tikrit On 11 June, insurgents advanced into the oil refinery town of
Baiji, seizing the main court house and police station and setting them on fire. The militants, who were travelling in a group of around 60 vehicles, also took control of the Baiji prison and freed all the inmates. Local residents told members of the media that ISIL sent a group of local tribal chiefs ahead of them to convince the 250 guards at the oil plant to withdraw, while soldiers and police had been warned to leave as well. Later in the day, militants reportedly retreated from Baiji, either due to persuasion from local tribal leaders or due to reinforcements from the Iraqi Army's Fourth Armored Division arriving in the city. However, the next day it was confirmed ISIL was still in control of the town, except the refinery which was surrounded. Two police stations were burned down and a military base was captured. ISIL forces had also reached Samarra and were fighting government troops at the city's northwest entrance. or
Amirli. Samarra had reportedly become surrounded by ISIL forces. Meanwhile, an Iraqi Border Patrol battalion stationed along the Syrian border in the western Anbar Governorate abandoned its positions in the face of advancing ISIL forces to break out to the relative safety of the Kurdish-controlled town of
Sinjar in Nineveh. However, the convoy of 60 trucks and hundreds of border police were thrown into disarray and panic when a small force of ISIL vehicles attacked them en route. By the time Kurdish forces arrived, the police force had been completely routed, with an unknown number of killed and captured, while others fled into the desert, leaving all their vehicles behind. Only two policemen managed to arrive at Sinjar on foot. At the same time, Kurdish forces entered Jalawla to secure offices of Kurdish parties in the town.
Government counter-attack AC-208 firing a
Hellfire missile during a training exercise in 2010. On 13 June 2014, Iraqi forces supported by elements of the
Quds Force and
Iranian Revolutionary Guards had gathered in the town of
Samarra and claimed to have regained control of parts of
Saladin Governorate, namely the town of Dhuluiyah. Insurgents in Tikrit were reported to be mining the roads leading into the city and positioning artillery to resist an anticipated siege. According to
The Guardian newspaper, the call to arms by the highest Shia authority in Iraq,
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, on 13 June mobilized in less than one day around a division of militiamen who, unlike the military, would not run from a fight with the insurgents. On 14 June, Al-Maliki went to Samarra and declared "Samarra will be the starting point, the gathering station of our troops to cleanse every inch that was desecrated by footsteps of those traitors." There were conflicting reports about the situation of
al-Dhuluiya, outside of Samarra. Government officials and state TV claimed that Iraqi security forces had taken control of the town, but security officials in Samarra and witnesses there told CNN the town was still under ISIL control. The same day, the Iraqi military attacked ISIL forces in
al-Mutasim, south-east of Samarra, driving militants out into the surrounding desert. Meanwhile, the bodies of 128 Iraqi soldiers and policemen killed in clashes with ISIL were received by medical staff in Mosul. Also, it was reported that the Iraqi Army had killed seven Kurdish security forces in an airstrike in Diyala. Jabbar Yawar, the secretary general of the Peshmerga, said talks with Iraqi authorities were under way to ascertain what had happened. The next day, the military recaptured
Ishaqi where the burned bodies of 12 policemen were found. On 28 June, Iraqi forces launched an attack against the city of Tikrit.
Renewed ISIL advance T-55 tank outside
Kirkuk on 19 June 2014. Late on 15 June, after repeated assaults, an insurgent assault, primarily led by the Naqshbandi Army and former Ba'athists, captured
Tal Afar and its nearby airbase The defenders, composed largely of Shia
Turkmen and soldiers retreating from Mosul, escaped to Kurdish-controlled territory. During the fighting for Tal Afar, 18 militants died, and ten people were killed in the insurgent shelling of the town. The local security garrison suffered heavy casualties, but the number was unknown. It was also claimed that Major General Abu Al-Waleed was captured at Tal Afar, but he allegedly later denied this on state TV. During that day, rebels made claims of executing 1,000–1,800 captured soldiers, while the military claimed the Air Force had killed 279 militants in the previous 24 hours. Analysis of execution videos by military experts managed to confirm the killing of at least 170 soldiers. The next day, 28–29 Iraqi Shiite volunteer militiamen were killed in an ambush of their convoy south of Samarra by ISIL. Meanwhile, the military claimed to have killed 56 insurgents in areas of western and southern Baghdad, The first Iranian soldier was also killed. In addition, Tal Afar fell on 16 June to ISIL forces led by
Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli al-Salbi. In the evening, police executed 44 Sunni prisoners at a police station in
Baqubah before retreating due to an advance by ISIL forces which captured several neighborhoods in the city. Conflicting information has been presented regarding the number killed and the identity of those responsible, as the
Washington Post reported that the prisoners were either killed during a battle with ISIL or "preemptively" by security forces. The situation regarding the killing of a Sunni imam in Baghdad is also unclear. On 17 June, according to BBC the Army had retaken the captured districts of Baqubah. Elsewhere, security forces withdrew from the
Al-Qa'im border crossing as rebels from the
Free Syrian Army and
al-Nusra Front crossed the border and took hold of it. Also, east of Samarra, the bodies of 18 executed security force members were discovered. On 18 June, ISIL attacked Iraq's largest oil refinery in
Baiji with mortars and machine guns. An official from inside the refinery stated the militants had captured 75 percent of the facility, while a military spokesman claimed the attack had been repelled with 40 insurgents being killed. Meanwhile, rebels overran three villages in Salaheddin Governorate following fighting that left some 20 civilians dead. Also,
India said that 40 of its nationals, who were working for a Turkish construction company in
Mosul, had been abducted by militants. At the same time,
Rauf Rashid Abd al-Rahman, the presiding judge during the trial of Saddam Hussein, was reportedly captured and executed by insurgents, though that was later denied by family members and the Kurdistan Regional Government. On 19 June, government forces claimed to have regained full control of the Baiji oil refinery, after heavy fighting with ISIL fighters that left 100 militants dead. An Iraqi witness who drove past the Baiji refinery told the
Associated Press that ISIL had hung their banners from the watch towers and created checkpoints surrounding the facility, despite government claims of control. By the evening, the two sides held different parts of the refinery. The same day, ISIL captured the Al Muthanna Chemical Weapons Facility near
Lake Tharthar, 45 miles northwest of Baghdad, in an area which was firmly come under rebel control by this point. On 20 June, the oil refinery was still surrounded by ISIL forces and had once again come under attack. By the evening, US officials had told
ABC News that the 270 Iraqi troops trapped in the refinery were outnumbered and outgunned. And, with ISIL in control of the roads to and from Baiji, there was little chance of their resources being replenished. The militants planned to wait until the troops ran out of food and ammunition. On the same day, ISIL claimed to have captured most of the Tal Afar airport. Kurdish forces, who were accompanied by a BBC news crew, became surrounded by ISIL on three sides in Jalula and later it was confirmed the control of the town was divided between the Kurds and ISIL. On 21 June, militants captured the Baiji oil refinery after overnight clashes with government forces. On the same day, Iraqi Shia militias rallied all over Iraq to show their strength. The largest rally was in Baghdad in which thousands of members of Shia militia
Promised Day Brigades participated. Also, ISIL clashed with allied Sunni militants, leaving 17 dead in Hawija. On 23 June, insurgents captured the Tal Afar airport and secured the town itself. Iraqi security sources confirmed for the first time the Baiji oil refinery had been seized by militants, after being attacked for several days. 400 soldiers of the 37th Brigade, including its officers, deserted from the refinery following an agreement reached with tribal leaders per which the troops had free passage to leave for 24 hours. 50–75 police commandos, who refused to desert, attempted to prevent the Brigade's desertion at gunpoint but were outnumbered by the soldiers and backed down. This left the insurgents in control of virtually the entire facility, except one compound where the refinery's operating systems are located due to the
SWAT members barricading themselves in the building. A standoff ensued as the insurgents didn't want to risk a direct assault for fear of damaging the facilities systems. Instead, ISIL decided to slowly starve out the commandos if they refused to surrender, since no reinforcements could be flown in to the SWAT unit due to the heavy insurgent anti-aircraft fire around the refinery. The siege of the building continued as of mid-July. By this point, sources reported that a combination of desertions, casualties and loss of equipment crippled the regular Iraqi military, forcing the government to increasingly rely on volunteers drawn from Shia militias. Iraqi officials also conceded they had essentially given up on the north of the country to the insurgent forces. On 24 June, the
Syrian Arab Republic launched its first airstrikes in Iraqi territory after previously targeting Syrian-Iraqi border crossings controlled by ISIL. Syria launched new strikes the next day when at least 50 people were killed and 132 others wounded, including civilians, after missiles launched by Syrian fighters hit a municipal building, a market, and a bank in
Al Rutba. It was unclear whether the Syrian fighters actually entered Iraqi territory when they made the airstrikes. Meanwhile, insurgents overran the Ajeel oil site, east of Tikrit, after the nearby town of al-Alam was seized by the militants and insurgents surrounded on three sides the massive Balad air base, also known as
Joint Base Balad and "Camp Anaconda" under U.S. occupation, and struck it with mortars. ==Aftermath==