Iraq battles to hold biggest oil refinery in Baiji

The sprawling Baiji refinery, 200 km (130 miles) north of the capital near Tikrit, was a battlefield as troops loyal to the Shi'ite-led government held off insurgents from the Islamic

This image taken from video uploaded to a pro-militant social media
account, which has been authenticated based on its contents and
other AP reporting, smoke rises after an attack by al-Qaida-inspired

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants on the country’s largest
oil refinery in Beiji. (Photo: AP)

Video aired by Al-Arabiya television showed smoke billowing from the plant and a black flag used by ISIL flying from a building. Workers trapped inside the complex, which spreads for miles close to the Tigris river, said Sunni militants seemed to hold most of the compound and that the security forces were concentrated around the refinery's control room. Iraqi security officials have denied that the plant was close to falling.

The 250-300 remaining staff were evacuated early on Thursday, one of those workers said by telephone. Military helicopters had attacked militant positions overnight, he added.

ISIL, which considers Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim majority as heretics in league with neighbouring, Shi'ite Iran, has led a Sunni charge across northern Iraq after capturing the major city

The group's advance has only been slowed by a regrouped military, Shi'ite militias and other volunteers. But on Tuesday, Sunni fighters took the small town of Mutasim, south of

ISIL, whose leader broke with al Qaeda after accusing the global jihadist movement of being too cautious, has now secured cities and territory in Iraq and Syria, in effect putting

The Iraqi government made public on Wednesday its request for U.S. air strikes, two and half years after U.S. forces ended the nine-year occupation that began by toppling

Saddam in 2003.

United States President Barack Obama. (Photo: AP)

Washington has given no indication it will agree to attack and some politicians have urged President Barack Obama to insist that Maliki goes as a condition for further U.S. help.

Within hours of Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari making the request public, General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, avoided a direct answer

when asked by senators whether Washington would accede to the Iraq request.

"We have a request from the Iraqi government for air power," Dempsey said. Asked whether the United States should honour that request, he answered indirectly, saying: "It is in our national security interest to counter ISIL wherever we find them."

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Iraqi request had included drone strikes and increased surveillance by U.S. drones, which have been flying over Iraq.

However, targets for air strikes could be hard to identify.

Another hurdle to U.S. military engagement could be political pressure in Washington for Maliki to quit. Several leading figures in Congress have spoken out against the premier,

"The Maliki government, candidly, has got to go if you want any reconciliation," said Dianne Feinstein, one of Obama's fellow Democrats, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Republican senator John McCain backed military support but urged Obama to "make it make very clear to Maliki that his time is up".

In this Tuesday, June 17, 2014 image taken from video uploaded
to a militant social media account, which has been authenticated
based on its contents and other AP reporting, al-Qaida-inspired
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants arrive to the country’s
largest oil refinery in Beiji. (Photo: AP)

If the Baiji refinery falls, ISIL and its allies will have access to a large supply of fuel to add to the weaponry and economic resources seized in Mosul and across the north.

An oil ministry official said the loss of Baiji would cause shortages in the north, including the autonomous Kurdish area, but that the impact on Baghdad would be limited - at

Some international oil companies have pulled out foreign workers. The head of Iraq's Southern Oil Company, Dhiya Jaffar, said Exxon Mobil had conducted a major evacuation

and BP had pulled out 20 percent of its staff.

He criticised the moves, as the areas where oil is produced for export are mainly in the Shi'ite south and far from the fighting.

Washington and other Western capitals are trying to save Iraq as a united country by leaning hard on Maliki to reach out to Sunnis, many of whom feel excluded by the Shi'ite parties that have dominated elections since the Sunni Saddam was ousted.

In a televised address on Wednesday, Maliki appealed to tribes, a significant force in Sunni areas, to renounce "those who are killers and criminals who represent foreign agendas".

But so far Maliki's government has relied almost entirely on his fellow Shi'ites for support, with officials denouncing Sunni political leaders as traitors. Shi'ite militia - some of which have funding and backing from Iran - have mobilised to halt the Sunni advance, as Baghdad's million-strong army, built by the United States at a cost of $25 billion, crumbles.

This week, Maliki fired four commanders for abandoning Mosul and said dozens of officers would be court martialled.

Like the civil war in Syria next door, the new fighting threatens to draw in regional neighbours, mustering along sectarian lines in what fighters on both sides depict as an existential struggle for survival based on a rift dating to the decades following Islam's foundation in the 7th century.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani made the clearest declaration yet on Wednesday that the Middle East's main Shi'ite power, which fought a war against Saddam that killed a million people in the 1980s, was prepared to intervene to protect Iraq's great shrines, visited by millions of Shi'ite pilgrims annually.

He said many people had signed up to go to Iraq to fight, although he also said Iraqis of all sects were prepared to defend themselves: "Thanks be to God, I will tell the dear people of Iran that veterans and various forces - Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds all over Iraq - are ready for sacrifice."

Iraqi troops are holding off Sunni fighters outside Samarra. The fighters have vowed to carry their offensive south to Najaf and Kerbala, seats of Shi'ite Islam since the Middle

Ages.

Maliki's government has accused Saudi Arabia of promoting "genocide" by backing Sunni militants. Riyadh supports Sunni rebels fighting Syria's Iranian-backed government but

denies aiding ISIL. The United Arab Emirates, a Saudi ally, recalled its ambassador from Baghdad and criticised what it called the sectarian policies of the Iraqi government.