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Iraqi security forces retake town in Salahudin province

Xinhua, February 8, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Iraqi security forces on Sunday retook control of an oil refinery town in Iraq's northern central province of Salahudin after three days of clashes with the Islamic State (IS) militants, a provincial security source said.

Thousands of Iraqi soldiers and Shiite militiamen backed by Iraqi aircraft pushed into the central part of the town of Baiji, some 200 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, after heavy clashes with the IS operatives, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The troops later advanced to the north and managed to break the siege of other forces who were trapped for weeks inside Iraq's largest oil refinery, just north of the town, the source said.

Fierce battles continued in the afternoon as the troops still fighting to free the remaining small pockets inside the town.

Teams of explosive experts are defusing dozens of landmines, roadside bombs and booby trapped buildings which the extremist militants planted in the town, the source added.

The Iraqi forces on Thursday launched an offensive from their positions in south of Baiji but their advance was slow as they were encountered by stiff resistance from the IS militants in addition to roadside bombs, he said.

Last year, the Iraqi forces freed the town and its refinery in November, but the IS militants again in December 21 seized the town after they forced the security forces and allied Shiite and Sunni tribal militiamen to withdraw to the villages to the south of Baiji, and imposed a siege on the nearby refinery.

Meanwhile, the troops advanced to the nearby small town of Seniyah, some 7 km west of Baiji, and seized its small oil refinery site, while they are still fighting the IS militants at the edges of the town, the source said.

Elsewhere in the province, heavy clashes erupted early in the day between the IS militants and the Shiite militiamen near the town of Balad, some 80 km north of Baghdad, leaving at least five IS militants and two militiamen killed, the source added.

Salahudin, a predominantly Sunni province with its capital of Tikrit, some 170 km north of Baghdad, is the hometown of former President Saddam Hussein.

The seizure of the province was part of the June 10 drastic security deterioration in the country, when bloody clashes broke out between Iraqi security forces and Sunni militants who took control of the country's northern city of Mosul and the later swathes of territories in Nineveh and other predominantly Sunni provinces. Endite