Tikrit

Tikrit (تكريت, Tikrīt also transliterated as Takrit or Tekrit) is a town in Iraq, located 140 km northwest of Baghdad on the Tigris river (at 34.61°N, 43.68°E). The town, with an estimated population in 2002 of about 28,900, is the administrative center of the province of Salah ad Din.

The town is first mentioned in the "Fall of Assyria Chronicle", as being a refuge for the Babylonian king Nabopolassar during his attack on the city of Assur in 615 BCE.

Tikrit is usually identified with the Mesopotamian Birtha.[1] As Tagrit, it was the seat of the Maphrian of the Monophysites.

Over a thousand years ago, it possessed a fortress and a large Christian monastery. It was renowned as a centre for the production of woolen textiles. The Arab Uqaylid Dynasty took hold of Tikrit in 1036.

Around 1137, the legendary Kurdish leader Saladin was born there; his many achievements include defending Egypt against the Christian Crusaders and recapturing Jerusalem in 1187. The modern province of which Tikrit is the capital is named after him.

The town, and much of Iraq with it, was devastated in the 14th century by the Mongol invasion under Hulagu.

In September 1917, British forces captured the town during a major advance against the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

The town is now perhaps best known for being the birthplace, in 1937, of Saddam Hussein, who frequently liked to compare himself with Saladin. Many senior members of the Iraqi government during his rule were drawn from Saddam's own Tikriti tribe, the Al Bu Nasir, as were members of his Iraqi Republican Guard, chiefly because Saddam apparently felt that he was most able to rely on relatives and allies of his family. The Tikriti domination of the Iraqi government became something of an embarrassment to Hussein and, in 1977, he abolished the use of surnames in Iraq to conceal the fact that so many of his key supporters bore the same surname, al-Tikriti (as did Saddam himself). Saddam Hussein was buried near Tikrit in his hometown of Owja following his hanging on December 30, 2006.