Alwaght- According to Antiwar website, ISIS terrorist group began withdrawing from the area around the Baiji refinery in northern Iraq on Saturday, Iraqi officials said. The retreat would mark the end of the group’s month-long siege at a strategic oil installation and would be a significant victory for government forces.
It was also reported police and army troops had entered the facility.
In June, ISIS terrorist group surrounded the refinery, about 110 miles north of Baghdad, trapping government forces inside. But a contingent of Iraqi soldiers and government forces held out against the terrorists, who staged repeated attacks to try to seize the terminal.
Police Brig. Gen. Khalil Ramal Ahmed said Saturday that as many as 400 members of the police force had arrived at the refinery from the south after the terrorists went into full retreat.
Government forces “are very close, just a few meters away,” spokesman Naim al-Aboudi said Saturday afternoon. He said the terrorists had planted dozens of improvised explosive devices to slow the government advance.
“They have many wounded, and they are retreating,” he said of the ISIS terrorist group. “But we are not inside yet.”
This past week, Iraqi forces staged a major offensive to retake the nearby town of Baiji from the terrorists, eventually seizing the area amid fierce fighting. Baiji is the largest town to be recaptured from the ISIS terrorists since the group launched its stunning offensive across northern Iraq in June, overrunning major urban centers such as Mosul and Tikrit.
The government’s progress in Baiji is a serious blow to the terrorist in the north. Their blockade of the refinery had taken much of the country’s oil production off line, leading to reduced supplies for domestic consumption.
