Second Battle of Tikrit

The United States resumed joint military operations with Iraq yesterday, interrupted after the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in an U.S. airstrike in Baghdad in early January, according to the New York Times.

Iraq fears an economic "collapse" if Washington imposes the promised sanctions, including blocking access to US-based accounts, in which Baghdad holds oil revenues that supply 90 percent of the national budget, according to BGNES.

The Iraqi military and the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIL said on Jan. 4 it did not conduct any airstrikes near Camp Taji north of Baghdad.

Earlier on Jan. 4, Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Forces umbrella grouping of paramilitary groups said airstrikes near camp Taji had killed six people and critically wounded three.

Iraqi state television had said they were U.S. airstrikes.

The US confirmed that it carried out a strike that killed Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir made a rare visit to Baghdad on Fe. 25, meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, the premier's media office said.

It was the first visit of a senior Saudi minister since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, a spokesman for Iraq's foreign ministry told Reuters.

An Iraqi court on Feb. 18 sentenced 40 men to death over the June 2014 massacre by jihadists and allied militants of hundreds of military recruits in Tikrit, a statement said.

The central criminal court in Baghdad found 40 of 47 defendants guilty of involvement in the "Speicher" massacre, named after the base near where the victims were captured before being executed.

Iraq has exhumed the remains of 470 people believed to have been executed by jihadists near Tikrit last year in what is known as the Speicher massacre, the health minister said May 28.

Iraqi ground forces secured the perimeter around the country?s biggest oil refinery on April 18 and entered the vast complex amid heavy clashes with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants, said a senior Iraqi military official.
                   

Iraq has exhumed the remains of 47 people believed to have been massacred by jihadists from mass graves in Tikrit, the human rights ministry's spokesman said April 7.
      
"The number of remains that were exhumed so far is 47, and they were found in 11 mass graves," Kamel Amin told AFP, adding that the number is expected to rise.
      

Amnesty International said on April 2 it was investigating reports of serious human rights violations committed by Iraqi government and allied forces in the operation to retake the city of Tikrit.