Iraqi Army Liberates Major Oil Refinery in Baiji, Kills ISIS Commander

The loss of Ramadi was the most damaging Iraqi setback this year against the Islamic State, which in 2014 captured the northern city of Mosul and still controls much of northern and western Iraq despite more than a year of United States airstrikes.

The Baiji area has seen almost uninterrupted fighting since IS swept across Iraq past year, but top officers said Thursday the Baiji refinery, the country’s largest, was almost secure.

Key positions in the Baiji area, around 200 kilometres (120 miles) north of Baghdad, have changed hands several times since IS launched a massive offensive in June 2014.

The Islamic State has used the Beiji fight as a way to pin down government forces and distract them from larger battles, said Aymenn Javad al-Tamimi, a fellow at the Middle East Forum who specializes in extremist groups. The next step after Beiji, Iraqi officials said, will include operations to take the nearby towns of Hawija and Shirgat, where tough fighting is likely.

“This battle is crucial”, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Monday during a visit to Salahuddin, the province north of Baghdad that includes Beiji.

Anti-IS forces, including thousands from the Popular Mobilisation (Hashed al-Shaabi) force that includes many Tehran-backed Shiite militias, have reconquered most of Baiji and its surroundings.

Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the foreign wing of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, was reported in Iraqi media to have been the mastermind of the latest Baiji offensive.

The leader of the Iranian-backed paramilitary group Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Sheikh Qais al-Khazali, was filmed in a military uniform accompanying troops inside the refinery in a video released by the group’s TV channel, Al-Ahad.

The US-led coalition said it had carried out numerous air strikes at Beiji to weaken the militants as the Iraqi forces moved in.

The push to retake Beiji came as Iraqi forces were mounting a parallel offensive to retake Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s western Anbar province. Coalition warplanes have carried out at least 69 strikes against Isis in the Ramadi area this month alone.

Army Major General Ali Dabbun said his forces, with backing from local Sunni tribal fighters opposed to Isis, had made good progress in Baghdadi.

Major ground advances in recent days have allowed pro-government forces to almost completely encircle Ramadi, where the coalition estimates the number of remaining IS fighters to be between 600 and 1,000. “Our forces defused 62 IEDs [improvised explosive devices], blew up three rigged buildings, causing no victims”, he said.

The representative, Ahmed al-Safi, urged Iraqi forces to respect human rights and not to steal from residents, a noteworthy injunction after accusations of serious abuses by some militias.

Islamic State controls one-third of the territory of the country. The troops waved Iraqi and Shi’ite militia flags.