- NEW: Iraqi military spokesman says 125 militants killed in operations across country
- NEW: A combatant tells CNN that ISIS remains in control of Tikrit
- Iraqi military official says Iraqi jets are targeting ISIS locations in city of Mosul
- ISIS attacked a military base south of Baghdad on Saturday, officials say
Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi security forces retook the city of Tikrit on Saturday, a local tribal leader and state media said, as they went on the offensive against the Sunni extremist militants who have seized swaths of northern and western Iraq.
Sheikh Khamis al-Joubouri, a key tribal leader in Tikrit, told CNN that the Iraqi security forces entered the city supported by special forces and fighters from among the local tribes, and had gained control.
He said that fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) retreated in the direction of Kirkuk and Nineveh provinces.
However, amid claim and counter-claim, a combatant told a CNN freelance reporter that ISIS fighters remained in control of Tikrit, but that there are fierce clashes in an area about 20 kilometers from the city center, toward Samarra.
State-run Iraqiya TV reported that the Iraqi army and volunteer militia groups had cleared ISIS fighters from what was former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's hometown.
The Iraqi army forces, equipped with tanks and backed up by the Iraqi air force, advanced on the city from four directions, the station said, citing the Salaheddin Military Command.
Sabah Numan, a Counter Terrorism Unit spokesman, told the station that 120 militants had been killed and 20 vehicles destroyed in a large scale operation that began Saturday morning.
"We are mainly busy defusing booby-trapped houses and cars on the main roads leading into Tikrit," he said.
CNN cannot independently confirm the reports.
Al-Joubouri said that the tribes were not aligned with the government or with ISIS and had stayed out of the fight until now.
But, he said, when ISIS fighters who arrived in Tikrit robbed banks and carried out executions, as well as bringing the local economy to a standstill, the tribal leaders offered their help to the Iraqi security forces poised outside the city.
The tribal leaders shared their knowledge of the city, including routes and known ISIS positions, he said.
On Friday, Human Rights Watch reported that two mass graves believed to contain the bodies of Iraqi soldiers, police and civilians killed by ISIS and their militant allies had been discovered in Tikrit.
Mosul airstrikes
Iraq's air force also targeted locations held by in the northern city of Mosul with airstrikes Saturday morning, a senior Iraqi military official told CNN.
The official, who could not be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said the strikes were carried out by Iraqi jet fighters firing Hellfire missiles.
Pentagon: US 'very prepared' to take ISIS 
Armed U.S. drones fly over Baghdad 
Peshmerga fighters, or Kurdish warriors, check cars at the entrance to a temporary displacement camp in Khazair, Iraq, for people caught in the fighting in and around the city of Mosul on Thursday, June 26. Vast swaths of northern Iraq, including the cities of Mosul and Tal Afar, have fallen as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, advances toward Baghdad, the capital. The ISIS militants want to establish a caliphate, or Islamic state, in the region, stretching from Iraq into northern Syria. 
A group of women wait outside the temporary displacement camp in Khazair on June 26. 
Smoke rises in the Karakus district of Mosul as clashes between Iraqi forces and ISIS militants on June 26. 
Food is handed out at the displacement camp in Khazair. 
A child walks over discarded water bottles and trash at a registration area at the displacement camp in Khazair on June 26. 
Kurdish Peshmerga take their positions behind a wall on the front line of the conflict with ISIS militants in Tuz Khormato, Iraq, on Wednesday, June 25. 
Peshmerga fighters clean their weapons at a base in Tuz Khormato, Iraq, on June 25. 
Female Peshmerga between 18 and 45 years old form a special unit that is called to serve in any conditions. A soldier is pictured here on June 25. 
A woman gathers bread in a temporary displacement camp for Iraqis caught up in the fighting in and around Mosul on Tuesday, June 24. 
An ISIS fighter takes control of a traffic intersection in Mosul on Sunday, June 22. 
An ISIS member distributes a copy of the Quran, Islam's holy book, to a driver in Mosul on June 22. 
Members of ISIS patrol in Falluja, 40 miles west of Baghdad, on Saturday, June 21. 
Volunteers raise their weapons and chant slogans during a parade in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City, Baghdad, on Saturday, June 21. 
Iraqi men register to volunteer to fight alongside security forces against Sunni Muslim militants and jihadists on Friday, June 20, at a recruitment center in Baghdad. 
New Iraqi army recruits gather in Najaf on Wednesday, June 18, following a call for Iraqis to take up arms against Islamic militant fighters. 
Soldiers with an Iraqi anti-terrorism unit are on guard June 18 in Baghdad. 
A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter injured in clashes with members of ISIS lies in a hospital in Irbil on June 18. 
An MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter lands on the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday, June 17. The carrier moved into the region to give President Barack Obama "additional flexibility," the Pentagon has said. 
Newly recruited Iraqi volunteer fighters take part in a training session in Karbala on June 17. 
Iraqi tribesmen gather in Baghdad on Monday, June 16, to show their readiness to join Iraqi security forces in the fight against Islamic militants. 
Iraqi Christian children gather inside the Church of the Virgin Mary for prayers in Bartala, Iraq, a town near Mosul, on Sunday, June 15. Militants seized Mosul last week, reportedly leading more than 500,000 people to flee Iraq's second-largest city. 
Shiite tribal fighters raise their weapons and chant slogans against ISIS in Basra, Iraq, on June 15. 
Members of ISIS prepare to execute some soldiers from Iraq's security forces in this image, one of many reportedly posted by the militant group online. CNN cannot independently confirm the authenticity of the images. 
A woman cradles her baby Thursday, June 12, at a temporary camp set up in Aski Kalak, Iraq, to shelter those fleeing the violence in northern Nineveh province. 
A girl fleeing from Mosul arrives at a Kurdish checkpoint on June 12. 
Iraqi men chant slogans outside of an army recruiting center to volunteer for military service June 12 in Baghdad. 
Kurdish Peshmerga forces, along with Iraqi special forces, deploy their troops and armored vehicles outside of Kirkuk, Iraq, on June 12. 
Children stand next to a burnt vehicle during clashes between Iraqi security forces and ISIS militants in Mosul on Tuesday, June 10. 
Civilians from Mosul escape to a refugee camp near Irbil, Iraq, on June 10. 
Iraqis fleeing the violence wait in their vehicles at a Kurdish checkpoint in Aski Kalak on June 10. 
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Photos: Iraq under siege Seven civilians were killed in Mosul's Bashtabia neighborhood and two were injured, according to Dr. Salaheldin Al-Naimi, general director of the Health Directorate of Nineveh province.
Iraq's military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, told a news briefing Saturday that Iraq's forces had regained the upper hand against ISIS and were now being supported by the tribes.
"We are advancing in all our fights," he said.
Atta said that a total of 125 ISIS fighters had been killed across Iraq in multiple operations, with 57 vehicles destroyed and 96 attack sorties flown by the air force.
In one setback for the military, seven Iraqi soldiers were killed and 29 others were wounded on Saturday in clashes between Iraqi security forces and ISIS at a military base, Iraqi security officials said.
ISIS fighters attacked the base in the town of Jurf al-Sakhar, about 85 kilometers (53 miles) south of Baghdad on Saturday morning, the officials said.
'Baghdad is safe'
ISIS has taken over swaths of northern and western Iraq in its quest to create an Islamic state stretching from Syria to Iraq. And the crisis has embroiled countries around the world.
Armed U.S. drones have started flying over Baghdad to provide additional protection for 180 U.S. military advisers in the area, a U.S. official told CNN on Friday.
But using the drones for any offensive strikes against ISIS would require approval from U.S. President Barack Obama.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, in a speech during a visit Friday to the Baghdad Operations Command, insisted the capital was not in danger.
"We have an army to respond to the catastrophe that has occurred, and Baghdad is safe and cannot be exposed to instability," he said, according to a statement released by his office.
"We will punish anyone making problems in the city of Baghdad."
Al-Maliki called on the chiefs of the security forces to be prepared to find and confront weaknesses in their institutions, and eliminate them because ISIS fighters used "psychological warfare against the armed forces."
He also stressed the need to confront "conspiracies" that target the political process in Iraq.
The Prime Minister, who is widely blamed for fostering sectarian division, is under pressure to allow the formation of a unity government. Iraq's newly elected Parliament is due to meet on Tuesday.
Mass graves, executions
Meanwhile, reports continue to emerge of atrocities committed by both sides.
Besides the reported Tikrit executions, Human Rights Watch said Saturday that ISIS fighters kidnapped at least 40 Shia Turkmen, dynamited four Shia places of worship, and ransacked homes and farms in two Shia villages just outside Mosul.
The few Sunni villagers who remained told those who fled that at least some of the kidnapped men had been killed, the rights group said. However, they had not seen bodies and could not give more information.
ISIS destroyed seven Shia places of worship in the predominantly Shia Turkmen city of Tal Afar, about 30 miles west of Mosul, earlier in the week, it added, citing local sources.
On Friday, Amnesty International released a report saying it has gathered evidence pointing to a pattern of "extrajudicial executions" of Sunni detainees by government forces and Shiite militias in the northern cities of Tal Afar, Mosul and Baquba.
"Reports of multiple incidents where Sunni detainees have been killed in cold blood while in the custody of Iraqi forces are deeply alarming," said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International's senior crisis response adviser, who is in northern Iraq.
"The killings suggest a worrying pattern of reprisal attacks against Sunnis in retaliation for ISIS."
Militants believed to be ISIS fighters shot down an Iraqi military helicopter Friday in Tikrit, using anti-aircraft weapons, witnesses said.
The Ministry of Defense denied claims that the helicopter, which was carrying supplies to a military outpost, was downed.
Barzani: Kurdish forces will not leave Kirkuk
Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, said that disputed areas of northern Iraq including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk will from now on be part of the Kurdish autonomous region, after Iraq's central government failed to hold a long-awaited referendum.
"We have waited for more than 10 years for the Iraqi federal government to address and solve the issue of these areas ... but it was to no avail," Barzani said Friday during a joint press conference with UK Foreign Secretary William Hague in Irbil.
Under Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, drawn up two years after Saddam Hussein was ousted, several disputed areas such as Kirkuk and small villages in Nineveh, Diyala and Salaheddin provinces, claimed by both the central government and the Kurdistan regional government, are to be determined by a referendum.
The vote never took place due to instability in most of these disputed areas.
More than a week ago, when the Iraqi army withdrew from Kirkuk, the Kurdish fighting force known as the Peshmerga took control of the city, as well as many of the disputed villages.
Battle for gas fields
Iraqi security forces and militants believed to be ISIS fighters clashed Friday near the Mansuriyah gas fields northeast of Baquba, in Diyala province, leaving at least three people dead and 14 wounded, police officials said.
Among those killed were a police officer and three Sunni tribesmen, they said.
The Mansuriyah gas fields are about 50 kilometers (31 miles) northeast of Baquba. The battle for their control comes just days after Iraqi security forces repelled a days-long attack by ISIS fighters on the Baiji oil refinery.
CNN's Arwa Damon, Chelsea J. Carter and Hamdi Alkhshali reported from Baghdad, and Laura Smith-Spark wrote in London. CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq, Raja Razek and Yousuf Basil contributed to this report, as did journalist Shirko Raouf.
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