Iraqi military forces reached the center of the northern city of Baiji on Sunday in an effort to break an Islamic State siege of the country's biggest refinery, triggering fierce clashes with the militants, according to an army colonel and a witness.
Islamic State Sunni insurgents seized Baiji in June during a lightning advance through northern Iraq. Since then, they have surrounded the refinery and halted its production while a detachment of government troops has held out for months under siege inside it.
The colonel said Iraqi troops entered Baiji, a city of about 200,000 people, from the south and west and took over the al-Tamim neighborhood and city center.
Islamic State had placed bombs along roads in Baiji and deployed snipers to keep government forces from advancing, tactics used in other cities held by the ultra-hardline Sunni group, which controls swathes of both Iraq and Syria.
"There are IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and snipers that are slowing down the advance, but the presence of the air force has facilitated the process of dismantling the IEDs in order to push forward," said the colonel.
"The areas taken so far are 6 km (4 miles) away from Baiji's refinery," he added. He said 12 militants had been killed.
Baiji resident Sultan al-Janabi told Reuters by telephone from his house that clashes had been raging since the advance, the first time security forces reached the city center since launching a new encirclement strategy at the end of last month.
"Violent confrontations are taking place in Baiji right now. I've been hearing continuous fire and loud bangs," said Janabi. U.S. air strikes destroyed an Islamic State convoy near the Iraqi city of Mosul on Friday evening but U.S. officials said on Saturday it was unclear whether the group's top commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been in any of the 10 targeted vehicles.
One Twitter account claimed Baghdadi had been wounded but others that support Islamic State said the report was untrue.
A member of western Anbar Province's security committee said he had heard unconfirmed reports that Baghdadi had been wounded and moved to Syria.
Iraqi officials and witnesses said there had also been an air strike in Anbar, and Islamic State had cleared a hospital so that leaders of the group who had gathered for a meeting which was attacked could be treated for injuries.
There was no official confirmation from the United States military that Baghdadi had been wounded. State television cited reports that Baghdadi had been wounded. It gave no further details.
Islamic State has also dispatched suicide bombers to keep security forces on the defensive.
REUTERS