Islamic State suicide bombers strike in Iraqi refinery town

The town of Baiji and its refinery - Iraq's largest - have been a battlefront for more than a year. The hardline Islamists seized the town in June 2014 as they swept through much of northern Iraq towards the capital Baghdad.

Control of Baiji neighborhoods has changed hands many times during the conflict. The latest Islamic State offensive comes after authorities said they controlled nearly the whole town and expected to drive insurgents from the refinery within days.

The militants attacked around 8 pm (1300 EDT) on July 4 with two suicide car bombings. The blasts were followed by fierce clashes that lasted until midnight and drove the army and mainly Shi'ite Hashd Shaabi forces from the center of town, two army colonels said.

Baiji mayor Mahmoud al-Jabouri said there had been a pattern of withdrawals by Islamic State fighters in the town followed by counter-offensives. "Their lethal weapons are suicide attacks and snipers, and this is why we have fighting back and forth."

In Anbar province west of Baghdad, witnesses said two rockets hit a crowd in the Islamic State-controlled provincial capital Ramadi on July 4 evening, killing at least 18 people.

They said a group of people had gathered after the daily Ramadan fast to play Muhaibis, a game where players have to identify a member of the opposing team who is hiding a ring.

In northwest Baghdad, at least three people were killed and 11 wounded when a bomb went off near a restaurant in the mainly Shi’ite district of Shulaa on Sunday morning, police and medical sources said. Another two people were killed by a bomb in Hussainiya on the city's northern outskirts.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for those attacks, but statements in the name of Islamic State said the group carried car bombings on July 4 evening in Baghdad and Balad Roz which killed 10 people.