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 A source in the local military command center told Reuters
military commanders had "reached a decision to halt the operation
until a suitable, carefully set plan is in place" to break into
central Tikrit.
The source, speaking by phone from near Tikrit, said the Iraqi
forces and Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias known as Hashid Shaabi
(Popular Mobilisation) were waiting for reinforcements from
"well-trained forces". He did not give a timeline for the arrival of
the reinforcements.
"We do not need a large number, just one or two thousand. We need
professional personnel and soldiers," he said, explaining they were
needed to engage in street-by-street battles with Islamic State
fighters who have booby-trapped buildings in the city and laid
improvised explosive devices and roadside bombs.
Army and militia forces pushed into Saddam Hussein's home city this
week in their biggest drive yet against the insurgents who seized
large swathes of land in Iraq and neighboring Syria last year in a
lightning campaign halted just outside Baghdad.
 More than 20,000 troops and allied militias entered the city about
160 km (100 miles) north of the capital on Wednesday after retaking
towns to the south and north in a campaign launched nearly two weeks
ago.
Security officials say a network of explosives and sniper attacks
are slowing the further advance of Iraqi troops. The insurgents
still hold around half of the city, including central districts and
a complex of palaces built by Saddam, the executed former Iraqi
leader.
Iraqi security expert Hisham al-Hashemi said it would not be
possible for Iraqi forces and militia fighters to clear the many
buildings in Tikrit rigged by IS fighters with explosives and said
airpower would be needed to do so.
North of Tikrit in the town of al-Malha near the Beiji oil refinery,
IS fighters attacked police and Hashid Shaabi forces and clashes
were continuing, local police said.
Victory for Iraq's Shi'ite-led government in Tikrit against the
Sunni insurgents would set the tone for a broader confrontation in
Mosul, the largest city in the north.
Amid the push to assert full control of Tikrit, Kurdish peshmerga
forces, backed by Shi'ite militia fighters, have been attacking
Islamic State-held towns and villages south and west of the oil-rich
city of Kirkuk, peshmerga sources said.
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On Saturday, the peshmerga were unable to enter the Shi'ite Turkman
village of Bashir, 20 km south of Kirkuk, due to roadside bombs and
snipers, but made slow advances and captured some villages to the
southwest of the city, the officials said.
Those advances, unlike the Tikrit battle to the southwest, have been
backed by sustained air strikes from a U.S.-led coalition.
In and around Tikrit, the battle is being waged by thousands of
fighters loyal to Shi'ite militias backed by Iran.
Islamic State insurgents continue to fight back elsewhere in Iraq in
territory they seized last year.
In Ramadi, about 90 km west of Baghdad, two suicide car bombers
attacked security personnel positions, killing two policemen, a
police source said. The attacks were followed by clashes between IS
fighters and Iraqi security forces in the city center, he added.
And on the outskirts of Samarra, a sacred Shi'ite city being used as
a rear base for the Tikrit offensive further north, militants
attacked an Iraqi army unit on Friday, two security officials said.
One said 11 soldiers had been captured by the militants while the
second said some soldiers had gone missing.
(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; Writing by Maggie Fick; Editing by
Janet Lawrence)
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