ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraqi joint forces have captured a strategic area in Baiji and entered the city's key oil refinery where fighting has raged for most of the last two months, the Baghdad government has announced. “Iraqi security forces have been able to severely attack Daesh gunmen [ISIS] in Baiji. They have also liberated the main road between the city and the Baiji oil refinery and now they are deployed inside the refinery,” the Iraqi Interior Ministry said in statement released Friday. According to the ministry, the intense fight for Baiji in still underway against the Islamic State, or ISIS, and the Iraqi forces’ new advances could change the momentum in favor of the Baghdad. Baiji is a city of about 200,000 inhabitants in northern Iraq. ts oil refinery, the biggest in Iraq, is located some 40km north of the city of Tikrit in Salahaddin province. The progress reported in Baiji comes days after ISIS militants seized Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province.
