Iraqi forces advance in key town of Baiji

KIRKUK: Iraqi forces advanced against the IS militant group in Baiji on Sunday as they battled to retake the strategic town for a second time, officers said.

Also on Sunday in Baquba, a suicide car bomb ripped through roadside restaurants at the entrance to the town of Baladruz in eastern Iraq, killing at least 15 people, police and provincial officials said.

Baghdad regained control of Baiji — located on the road to IS hub Mosul and near the country’s largest oil refinery — last year, but subsequently lost it again.

“Our security forces arrived to the centre of the town of Baiji around 10:30 am (0700 GMT) and raised the Iraqi flag,” an army major general told AFP. The officer said that Iraqi forces were shelling “terrorists hideouts” in the town with mortar rounds. A police colonel confirmed that Iraqi forces were making progress, saying they were in control of the city centre and were “advancing toward the northern neighbourhoods of the town.” Security forces are also fighting to push IS out of the nearby Baiji refinery, a vast complex, which once produced 300,000 barrels per day of refined products meeting half of the country’s needs.

Meanwhile, the attack took place late Saturday at the entrance of Baladruz, which lies about 65 kilometres (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, and was claimed by the IS group.

“It hit a string of restaurants on the eastern side of town... Most of the people there were truck drivers transporting goods between Baghdad and Kurdistan,” a police officer said. The officer said 37 people were also wounded in the explosion. Khidhr Muslim Abed, a member of Diyala provincial council, confirmed the toll. IS claimed the attack in a statement posted on its forums on Sunday and said that one of those killed was a member of the counterterrorism unit in Iraq’s police.