Iraqi government holds on to Beija refinery as fighting enters 3rd day
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IRAQI soldiers and helicopter gunships battled Sunni militants for a third day yesterday for control of Iraq’s largest oil refinery, the loss of which would be a devastating symbol of the Baghdad government’s powerlessness in the face of a determined insurgency hostile to the West.
The two sides held different parts of the sprawling Beiji facility, which extends over several square kilometers of desert and accounts for just over a quarter of the country’s entire refining capacity.
The militants, led by the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, clearly hope to get millions of dollars in revenue from operating the refinery — as they did for a while after seizing oilfields in neighboring Syria. More broadly, however, capturing the facility could weaken Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s hold on power by calling into question his ability to stop the militants’ advance.
In the strongest sign yet of doubts in the United States about Iraq’s stability, the Obama administration is weighing up whether to press the Shiite prime minister to step down in a last-ditch effort to prevent Sunnis starting a civil war.
President Obama was set to discuss options for responding to the crumbling security situation with his national security team yesterday.
The fighting at Beiji, about 250km north of Baghdad, comes as Iraq has asked the US for airstrikes targeting the militants.
Obama has not ruled out the possibility of such strikes, but the action is unlikely to happen soon because intelligence agencies have been unable to identify clear targets on the ground, officials said.
One of the militants laying siege to the refinery confirmed that it remained in government hands, saying helicopter gunships slowed the insurgents’ advance. He identified himself only by his alias, Abu Anas, but there was no way to verify his identity or location.
A top Iraqi security official also said the government still held the facility but that its workers had been evacuated.
The army officer in charge of protecting the refinery, Colonel Ali al-Qureishi, told state-run Iraqiya television that the facility remained under his control. He said forces had killed nearly 100 militants since Tuesday.
Photographs taken yesterday showed the charred remains of army vehicles sitting by a road that runs past the facility. They also showed US-made Humvees captured by the militants flying the black jihdish banners and heavily armed militants manning a checkpoint.
Gasoline produced at the refinery largely goes to northern Iraq and its closure has caused a shortage in the region.
The assault also has hit global gas prices, as the US national average price reached US$3.68 per gallon, its highest for this time of year since 2008.
Meanwhile, the bullet-riddled bodies of four handcuffed men, presumably Sunnis, were discovered yesterday in the Shiite Baghdad district of Abu Dashir, officials said.
Also, a roadside bomb hit a police patrol on a highway in the east of the city, killing two police officers, while a car bomb exploded at a parking lot in Baghdad’s southeastern Shiite neighborhood of New Baghdad, killing three people and wounding seven, the officials said.
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