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Suicide attacks kill 9 soldiers in oil refinery town in Iraq

Xinhua, July 5, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Islamic State (IS) militants carried out overnight attacks against the security forces in the town of Baiji near the country's largest oil refinery in Salahudin province, killing at least nine soldiers, a provincial security source said on Sunday.

The extremist militants attacked late Saturday night with two suicide bombers who drove their explosive-laden cars into the positions of the security forces and allied militias, known as Hashd Shaabi, or popular mobilization, in the neighborhoods of Asri and Tamim in central Baiji, some 200 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

After several hours of heavy clashes, the IS militants seized the central part of the town after the withdrawal of the security forces, leaving at least nine soldiers killed, the source said, without giving further details.

Sporadic clashes continued on Sunday morning, while reinforcement troops arrived at the scene, apparently to begin a counter-attack to regain control of the central part of the town, the source added.

The security forces and allied militias, backed by Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition aircraft, have cleared most of the town of Baiji since Tuesday after days of heavy clashes with the extremist militants, but the two sides have been involved in fierce tug-of-war battles inside the town.

The battles in Baiji came as heavy clashes continued in the nearby Iraq's largest oil refinery, as the security forces are fighting to drive IS militants out of the refinery, which the militants are seizing large parts of it.

Since March 2, security forces and thousands of allied Shiite and Sunni militias have been involved in Iraq's biggest offensive in order to recapture from IS militants the northern part of Salahudin province.

The security situation in Iraq has drastically deteriorated since June 2014, when bloody clashes broke out between Iraqi security forces and hundreds of militants from the IS.

The militants took control of the country's northern city of Mosul and later seized swathes of territories after Iraqi security forces abandoned their posts in Nineveh and other predominantly Sunni provinces. Endit