Iraq’s forces drive IS militants from key town

BAGHDAD — Iraqi forces drove Islamic State militants out of a strategic oil refinery town north of Baghdad on Friday, scoring their biggest battlefield victory since they melted away in the face of the terror group’s stunning summer offensive that captured much of northern and western Iraq.

The recapture of Beiji is the latest in a series of setbacks for the jihadi group, which has lost hundreds of fighters to airstrikes by a U.S.-led coalition in a stalled advance on the Syrian town of Kobani. On Friday, activists there reported significant progress by Kurdish fighters defending the town.

Iraqi security officials said government forces backed by allied militiamen took control of Beiji and also lifted a months-long Islamic State siege on its refinery — Iraq’s largest. However, two military officials reached by telephone in Beiji late Friday said there was still some fighting going on at the refinery, but reinforcements had been sent in and Iraqi forces were poised to retake it.

The security officials said the army used loudspeakers to warn the small number of residents still holed up inside the town to stay indoors while bomb squads cleared booby-trapped houses and detonated roadside bombs.

Also Friday, a suicide bomber tried to drive an explosive-laden bulldozer into a Beiji college used by government forces, the military officials said. The bomber was shot dead as he approached the gate, but still managed to detonate his explosives, killing three soldiers and wounding seven, they said. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Beiji will now likely be a base for staging a push to take back Saddam Hussein’s southern hometown of Tikrit, after government forces tried to retake it earlier this year. That campaign stalled and the city remains in Islamic State hands.

In Syria, meanwhile, activists reported advances by Kurdish fighters against Islamic State militants in the strategic town of Kobani. Reached by telephone, activist Barzan Isso said the situation has improved for the town’s defenders following the recent airdrop of weapons by the United States and the arrival of heavily armed Kurdish fighters from Iraq to join the town’s defense.