Iraq Controls Baiji from ’ISIL’

Local Editor

Iraqi forces advanced against the "ISIL" terrorist group in Baiji on Sunday as they battled to retake the strategic town for a second time, officers said.

Baghdad regained control of Baiji - located on the road to "ISIL" hub Mosul and near the country's largest oil refinery - last year, but subsequently lost it again.
"Our security forces arrived to the center of the town of Baiji around 10:30 am and raised the Iraqi flag," an army major general said.

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 center and were "advancing toward the northern neighborhoods of the town."

The Defense Ministry made the announcement on Sunday.

"Forces have cleansed and are in control completely of government complex, city center, Fatah mosque [main mosque] and surrounding neighborhoods," Brigadier General Tahseen Ibrahim, a spokesman for the Iraqi Defense Ministry, said.

The commander of the Interior Ministry's Quick Reaction Forces, Brigadier General Nassir al-Fartousi, also said the Iraqi flag has been raised on a local government building in the city in Salahuddin Province.

Representatives of volunteer forces fighting with the Iraqi army have also confirmed that the entire city has been liberated.

Security forces are also fighting to push "ISIL" 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.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team