Drew attention to combat operations moving north (7)
I believe the answer is:
spotlit
'drew attention to' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'combat operations moving north' is the wordplay.
'combat' becomes 'tilt' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'operations' becomes 'ops' (abbreviation).
'moving north' says the letters should be written backwards (in a down clue, letters go up or 'north').
'tilt'+'ops'='tiltops'
'tiltops' back-to-front is 'SPOTLIT'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for spotlit that I've seen before include "Brightly illuminated" , "highly illuminated" , "that's clearly visible on stage" , "Drew attention to" , "centre of attention" .)