Iraqi military recaptures biggest oil refinery from ISIS

Middle East, News April 18, 2015 , by IRIA No Comments

Iraqi forces retook most of the country’s largest refinery from Islamic State on Saturday, officials said, reversing gains by the militants who seized parts of the sprawling complex in northern Iraq this week.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State said troops had recaptured all of Baiji refinery at 11:30 GMT (7.30 a.m. EDT), but officials in Salahuddin, the province where it is located, said there was still fighting around some facilities.

The insurgents attacked the refinery a week ago by blasting through the security perimeter around it and taking over several installations, including storage tanks, a technical institute and a distribution point.

Iraq’s biggest oil refinery, which once produced some 300,000 barrels of refined petroleum products per day, had been besieged for days by ISIS terrorists 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 ISIS terrorists in the process.

On April 11, the ISIS terrorists launched a fierce assault on the refinery, located near the key city of Baiji. Clashes between Iraqi forces and the ISIS 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 ISIS 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 ISIS militants.

Also on Thursday, Iraqi forces seized full control of the strategic city of Ramadi in the western province of Anbar from ISIS terrorists.

The ISIS 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.

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