Militants attack gov’t forces near Iraq’s Baiji refinery

BAGHDAD — Daesh militants attacked government forces and their Shiite militia allies on Saturday, killing 11 near the city of Baiji as part of the battle for control of Iraq's biggest refinery, army and police sources said.

Four suicide bombers in vehicles packed with explosives hit security forces and the local headquarters of the Shiite militias in the area of Al Hijjaj, 10km to the south of Baiji town, near the refinery, sources at the nearby Tikrit security operations command said.

Iraqi government forces and powerful Iranian-backed Shiite militias face Daesh on several fronts in Iraq, a major oil producer and OPEC member.

They include areas around Baiji refinery, north of Baghdad, and the city of Ramadi west of the capital, seized last month by Daesh, the ultra-hardline Sunni group that poses the biggest threat to Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Ramadi is the provincial capital of Anbar Province, Iraq's Sunni heartland.

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama ordered the deployment of 450 more US troops to Anbar to advise and assist fragile Iraqi forces being built up to try to retake territory lost to Daesh.

Iraq has been struggling to find a formula for stability since the last US troops withdrew in 2011, with the battle against Daesh and widespread sectarian bloodletting severly hampering efforts to rebuild the economy.

Daesh’s drive, its hardline views and ambitions to create a “caliphate” where opponents are executed or beheaded, have exacerbated Iraq's sectarian conflict.

In eastern Iraq, tensions between Kurdish and Shiite forces ran high on Saturday for a second consecutive day. The two sides have in the past joined forces against Daesh but competition for territory can sometimes undermine cooperation.

Trouble erupted when Kurdish peshmerga fighters began digging a trench to separate two towns in Diyala province.

On Saturday, clashes flared anew, police sources said, adding that four Shiite militiamen and two Kurdish peshmerga fighters had been wounded.

The Iraqi army depends heavily on support from the umbrella Shi'ite militia group Popular Mobilisation Front in the face of advances from Daesh.

Unlike its predecessor in Iraq, Al Qaeda, Daesh holds territory it captures, while also conducting suicide bombings and beheadings. It now controls a third of Iraq, as well as large parts of neighbouring Syria.

Daesh holds territory in Libya and has militant sympathisers in Egypt, the most populous Arab state.