ISIL fighters driven out of Iraq’s Beiji

Iraqi government forces have reached within a kilometre of the
country's biggest oil refinery, according to two army officers and a
witness.
It is the closest they have come to breaking an Islamic State in Iraq
and the Levant (ISIL) siege of the Beiji facility during months of
fighting, Reuters news agency reported.
Fighting raged on Friday in a village between the complex and the
nearby town of Beiji, near a deserted area believed to contain
roadside bombs planted by ISIL fighters that has been preventing an
advance, the army officers said.
"Daesh (ISIL) militants are escaping to the direction of a river.
Airplanes are targeting them," an army captain said.
Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, reporting from Baghdad, said the tactics used
by the army to retake the town were also important.
"You have to remember that the Beiji oil refinery is partly in the
control of ISIL and partly by Iraq's army, and that is why the battle
for Beiji was so crucial. Now this battle took 20 days and it may well
be a blueprint for battles here in the future due to the type of
tactic that were being used," he said.
"The coalition Beiji really helped in the taking of the town, and also
this idea that different types of Iraqi army units could work
together."
A witness said security forces had crossed a bridge close to the
refinery, 200km north of the capital.
ISIL fighters seized the town of Beiji and surrounded the refinery in
June during a swift campaign through northern Iraq.
The group also controls territory in neighbouring Syria and has
proclaimed a "caliphate" straddling both countries.
Iraq's army initially put up little resistance to ISIL, but it has
been helped in recent weeks by the US-led air attacks on ISIL
positions.
Haider al-Abadi, Iraqi prime minister, dismissed 26 military
commanders recently for corruption and incompetence in the aftermath
of ISIL advance.
In September, he retired two senior generals as part of an overhaul of
the country's armed forces.
Speaking through an aide after Friday prayers, Grand Ayatollah Ali-al
Sistani, Iraq's most senior Shia religious leader, reiterated his
criticism of corruption in the military.
He also called on the government to get its finances in order, fund
projects and create jobs.