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BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraqi forces drove Islamic State militants out of a strategic oil refinery town north of Baghdad on Friday, scoring their biggest battlefield victory since they melted away in the face of the terror group's stunning summer offensive that captured much of northern and western Iraq. The recapture of Beiji is the latest in a series of setbacks for the jihadi group, which has lost hundreds of fighters to airstrikes by a U.S.-led coalition in a stalled advance on the Syrian town of Kobani. On Friday, activists there reported significant progress by Kurdish fighters defending the town. Iraqi...

Members of the Iraqi army have torn down the sinister black flag of the Islamic State in Jurf al-Sakhr after forcing the terror group out of the strategically important city. Soldiers removed the extremist group's emblem from a tower and replaced it with the Iraqi national flag in a symbolic gesture that came after days of heavy fighting. The jihadis were forced to retreat from Jurf al-Sakhr and reassemble in the city's suburbs, with the group's leaders confirming a large number of militant deaths at the hands of the regime troops, but urging its fighters to remain in the area...

Iraqi and Peshmerga forces have reportedly wrested key areas of northern and southern Iraq from Isis (Islamic State) militants following 22 US-led air strikes. Kurdish forces said on Saturday that they recaptured several towns and villages held by Isis in the north, while Iraqi government forces said they reclaimed the town of Jurf al-Sakhr, 50km south of Baghdad. The US Central Command said the Iraqi and Kurdish ground forces were backed by several air strikes by US-led forces on Friday and Saturday. The air strikes targeted Isis forces in Mosul in the north, Fallujah in the western Anbar province, and...

The Iraqi army continues its fight against ISIL militants in the north and west of the country, achieving great victories. In the province of Salahuddin, the joint operations of Iraqi forces, Sunni tribes and Shia volunteers helped liberate the town of Dhuluiyah after fierce clashes lasting for days.

Iraq’s military has halted Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) militants 40 kilometers outside of Baghdad according to news agency reports, stalling a potentially devastating drive toward the Iraqi capital. Iraqi airstrikes on Sunday held the jihadist fighters at Ameriyat al-Fallujah, a strategic town west of Baghdad and south of ISIS-controlled Fallujah. But panic spread in the capital as rumors circulated of IS attacks in the city’s immediate suburbs. Amid confusion on the ground about the exact location of IS fighters, the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, an Anglican group, wrote on its Facebook account that the...

This is what an ISIS rout looks like in Iraq: Up to 300 troops killed. Others missing, possibly dead or having fled. Dozens of military vehicles, from tanks to ambulances, destroyed or seized. And the Iraqi military in disarray, so much so the country’s Prime Minister has sent “anti-terrorism forces … to hold the negligent (military) leaders responsible.” What happened Sunday east of Falluja, around military encampments in Saqlawiyah and Sejar, is bad enough for the Iraqi government. Yet what makes it worse is that it’s happened before. This latest incident was particularly galling because, according to surviving Iraqi soldiers,...

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraq’s new prime minister scrapped a top military office and ordered two senior commanders into retirement, in a major move aimed at restructuring a failed army that is having to fight the Islamic State (IS) forces. The changes follow another defeat by the Iraqi army against IS forces. Haidar al-Abadi discarded the office of the Adjutant General of the Armed Forces, set up by his predecessor Nouri al-Maliki, who was accused of trying to concentrate power in his own hands. The premier “canceled” the position, which was inside the prime minister’s own office, said a statement posted...

Baghdad: Over 100 people were killed and 79 others wounded in Iraq Thursday in US air strikes and clashes between the Iraqi security forces and insurgent militants, including those with the Islamic State(IS), officials and security sources said. In Iraq`s northern province of Nineveh, US airstrikes hit an IS training centre at the college of agriculture in Hamam al-Alil area, some 25 km south of Nineveh`s provincial capital Mosul, leaving 59 militants dead and some 70 others wounded, according to the head of the security committee of Nineveh`s provincial council. "Some of the dead and wounded were recruits who...

US Airstrikes IVO Baghdad by ISIS Study Group In the first real sign that the US government is actually coordinating their airstrikes against priority targets, sorties in the last few days have been concentrated in and around the areas Southwest of Baghdad. CENTCOM officials didn't specify where these strikes occurred, but we assess they were targeting Islamic State positions in Jurf al-Shakur (variants Shaqir, Sakhar), which remains a critical piece of real estate for the IS campaign to overwhelm IA forces defending Baghdad, and using this area as a staging area for launching strikes targeting specific neighborhoods inside the Nation's...

Iraqi security forces Tuesday recaptured several villages in heavy clashes with extremist insurgent groups, while US warplanes expanded their airstrikes and pounded Islamic State militants near Iraq's capital Baghdad. A senior Iraqi security spokesman said the US air force carried out the first airstrike under a new anti-IS plan on positions of the IS militants in Sadr al-Yousifiyah area, southwest of Baghdad, according to Xinhua. "The airstrike was important and was carried out in coordination with Baghdad Operations Command," military spokesman Qasim Atta told reporters in Baghdad. Sadr al-Yousifiyah is located on the Euphrates river between the militant-seized city of...

Iraqi army forces, backed by fighters from the Shia Mahdi Army, have pushed back an advance by ISIL Takfiri militants in a village in the northern province of Salahuddin, Press TV reports. On Saturday, Iraqi troops and fighters from the al-Mahdi Army repelled the militants from the village of al-Bouhassan in the northern region of Amerli. The operation was the last in the series of mop-up operations by the Iraqi army in Amerli, which was liberated earlier this month after more than two months of being besieged by ISIL terrorists. The Iraqi government forces have also killed at least...

Iraqi forces retook a key strategic town from Islamic State militants today in a victory that has been hailed as a possible turning point in the fight against jihadis overrunning the country. Barwanah, in Iraq's Anbar province, has been gripped by vicious fighting for months since IS fighters overran the region last December. But yesterday, after American warplanes carried out strikes in the area, Iraqi troops finally broke through IS defences as part of a major operation to wrest back the province from the clutches of the extremist horde.

This week, Iraqi military planes have been ordered to fly over Mosul city and drop leaflets urgents residents to rise against Islamic State (IS) militants. “Iraqi military planes have dropped leaflets over neighborhoods of Mosul in the late night of Tuesday,” said an eyewitness to Iraqi local media. He stated that the leaflets had the sign of the Iraqi Defence Ministry that written: “IS terrorists were defeated by Iraqi heroes in Amrli and they will also flee from the power of Mosul residents.” The eyewitness also states that on the leaflet, there were some pictures of weapons and military vehicles...

The Iraqi military and Kurdish forces have kicked off an all-out campaign to recapture militant-held towns in the region of al-Khazer in Nineveh plains. Al-Khazer lays midway through the Kurdish capital city of Erbil and the capital of Nineveh province, Mosul. The Iraqi and Kurdish forces have thus far managed to regain control over the villages of Baride, Kani Kawan, Sewidan and Ashqalan. They have also seized control of the strategic Mount Zartak which overlooks the towns of Bashiqa and Bartella. Bashiqa and Bartella are two historic Christian towns in the Hamadaniyah district. When taking over them last month, the...

The U.S. has launched fresh airstrikes against the Islamic State militant group, also known as ISIS, in an effort to keep the Haditha Dam in western Iraq in the hands of that country's army. Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby confirmed the airstrikes in a statement issued early Sunday, saying that the strikes destroyed five Humvees, an armed vehicle, and a checkpoint. The strikes also damaged a militant bunker. Kirby also said that the U.S. had carried out one airstrike that destroyed an ISIS humvee at the crucial Mosul Dam in northern Iraq. Sunday's strikes bring the total number...

BAGHDAD – Militants from the Islamic State group carried out a mass killing of hundreds of Iraqi soldiers captured when the extremists overran a military base north of Baghdad in June, a leading international watchdog said Wednesday. The incident at Camp Speicher, an air base that previously served as a U.S. military facility, was one of the worst atrocities perpetrated by the Islamic State group as it seized large swaths of northern and western Iraq. According to Human Rights Watch, new evidence indicates Islamic State fighters killed between 560 and 770 men captured at Camp Speicher, near the city of...

Government forces reported to have entered Tikrit outskirts amid reports of Islamic State group withdrawing from area. A significant number of Islamic State group fighters have withdrawn from northern Iraqi cities, after government forces launched a major ground and air offensive, officials in Tikrit and Mosul said. "We are hearing reports that fighters are retreating but it is expected to be a fierce battle," Al Jazeera's Jane Arraf, reporting from Baghdad, said on Tuesday. "But this is battle likely to last days," our correspondent said. Sources told Al Jazeera that security forces had entered the outskirts of Tikrit and were...

Iraqi Shia militias and Kurdish forces are continuing their advance against Islamic State militants after breaking the siege of Amerli in northern Iraq. A BBC team entered the town on Monday, finding residents who had endured more than two months under siege. The joint forces have also seized the militant stronghold of Suleiman Beg. Meanwhile Amnesty International says that it has uncovered new evidence that Islamic State have launched a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the north.

Baghdad (Alliance News) - Iraqi government and Kurdish forces on Monday retook two more towns from the militant Islamic State organization, officials said, building on recent gains against the radical jihadists. Government troops, backed by Shiite militiamen and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, recaptured the northern town of Suleiman Pek, an official said. "Elite troops were able today to fully purge Suleiman Pek of the Islamic State," spokesman for Iraq's anti-terrorism agency, Sabah al-Numan, told independent site al-Sumaria News. "The troops hoisted the Iraqi flag on top of the town hall." Suleiman Pek is located near Amerli, which Iraqi troops regained on...

Iraqi security forces and Shiite militiamen liberated the town of Amirli Sunday following a two-month siege by ISIS militants, officials told NBC News. The news comes hours after the Pentagon announced the U.S. military was conducting airstrikes and dropping humanitarian aid to the city at the request of the Iraqi government. "Amirli is liberated by the joint Iraqi forces," Hakim Al-Zamily, a Sadrist member of Parliament, said. "ISIS militants escaped from Amirli and the areas around."