A high-ranking Iraqi military commander says the country’s ground forces have entered the embattled oil refinery of Baiji in the northern province of Salahuddin.
According to Salahuddin’s top commander, Abdel-Wahab al-Saadi, on Saturday, the Iraqi army managed to secure the areas surrounding the refinery and enter the site following heavy clashes with the ISIL militants.
Iraq’s biggest oil refinery, which once produced some 300,000 barrels of refined petroleum products per day, had been besieged for days by ISIL militants who had also managed to take over a small part of the site’s complex.
On Friday, Iraqi troops took back the towns of al-Malha and al-Mazraah, located three kilometers (1.9 miles) south of the Beiji oil refinery, killing at least 160 ISIL terrorists in the process.
On April 11, the ISIL terrorists launched a fierce assault on the refinery, located near the key city of Baiji. Clashes between Iraqi forces and the ISIL militants have continued unabated in the area surrounding the refinery over the past few days.
Baiji is located on a main road to the northern city of Mosul, which is under ISIL control and its liberation can choke off the militants’ supply lines.
Earlier in the month, the Iraqi army, backed by volunteer forces including both Shia and Sunni members, managed to fully recapture Tikrit, the capital city of Salahuddin, from the ISIL militants. The Iraqi forces are now trying to clear the rest of the province from Takfiri elements.
Also on Thursday, Iraqi forces seized full control of the strategic city of Ramadi in the western province of Anbar from ISIL terrorists.
The ISIL terrorist group, with members from several Western countries, controls swathes of land in Iraq and Syria, and has been carrying out horrific acts of violence such as public decapitations and crucifixions against all communities such as Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, and Christians.
