In their place Shiite militia flags and photos of militia leaders mark the predominantly Sunni village, including that of Major General Qassem Soleimani, the powerful Iranian general advising Iraqi Shiite militias on the battlefield.
Demonstrators pulled down militia flags and set a vehicle on fire inside what was once the base of former leader Muammar Gaddafi's security forces, who tried to put down the first protests that sparked last year's uprising.
The soldiers just looked on, and Israeli sightseers, kept at a distance by the troops, peered at the convoys through binoculars, trying to identify the militia flags by their colors.
Iraq's interior minister has said one of the reasons for stalling the offensive was to allow civilians to flee Tikrit, but vehicles flying militia flags were the only traffic seen coming from the direction of the frontlines Saturday afternoon on the south side of the city.
During this time Endecott argued that women should be veiled in church, and controversially defaced the local militia's flag, because it bore St George's Cross, which Williams claimed was a symbol of the papacy.
Known as the Southold Militia Pine Tree Flag, it has a field of four horizontal strips of tan wool fabric with the inscription "5 Regt" on one.
In Lee's account, the standoff was finally broken when he approached the wagons at the head of a squad of Mormon militia under a flag of truce and laid out what he said were the Indians' terms for surrender.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Street names in Syria's far northeastern corner have been changed from Arabic to Kurdish, schools openly teach the Kurdish language, and the country's most powerful Kurdish militia flies its flag from checkpoints on main roads.
A month later, in the real world, militia flying Russian flags – known to the locals as "little green men" – appeared in eastern Ukraine.
