Iraqi troops retook the strategic town of Dur from Islamic State militants Friday, the fifth day of a major offensive against the extremist militia in northern Iraq, state television reported, according to dpa. The troops, backed by allied Shiite militiamen and Sunni tribal fighters, killed dozens of militants in the battle for Dur, al-Iraqiya TV said. "The troops raised the Iraqi flag in Dur," the broadcaster said in a news bulletin that was followed by patriotic songs. Dur lies between the government stronghold of Samarra and the Islamic State-controlled city of Tikrit. It is located about 25 kilometres east of Tikrit, the hometown of the late dictator Saddam Hussein. Military engineers were removing hundreds of explosives that Islamic State fighters had planted inside Dur to hamper the troops' advance, according to the broadcaster. The claims could not be independently verified. Iraqi troops began a large-scale operation Monday to dislodge Islamic State from its stronghold in the country's northern Sunni heartland. The focus of the current onslaught is to regain Tikrit, seized by the Islamic State in June when the radical Sunni group made territorial gains across northern Iraq.
