BAGHDAD — Iraqi ground forces secured the perimeter around the country’s biggest oil refinery on Saturday and entered the vast complex amid heavy clashes with the Daesh (the so-called IS) militants, said a senior Iraqi military official.



Abdel-Wahab Al-Saadi, the top military commander in Iraq’s Salahuddin province, said ground forces entered the Beiji oil refinery Saturday, days after a number of the Daesh militants carried out a large-scale attack and briefly took over a small part of the complex. “It is another victory achieved by Iraqi security forces that are growing confident in the war against the terrorists,” Al-Saadi told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.



The refinery has remained under government control, but the militants had been surrounding the entire complex preventing access by Iraqi forces.



A day earlier, Iraqi soldiers, backed by US-led coalition airstrikes and Shiite and Sunni militias dubbed the Popular Mobilization Forces, gained control of the towns of Al-Malha and Al-Mazraah, located 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) south of the Beiji refinery.



Iraqi forces recaptured Tikrit, capital of Salahuddin, on April 1 and have been gradually pushing their offensive north to secure the rest of the province. — AP