Rocket targets oil refinery in Iraq’s Salahuddin province; ISIS claims responsibility

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A Katyusha rocket Sunday evening landed inside an oil refinery in rural parts of Iraq’s northern Salahuddin province, causing a fire but no human casualties, reports said.

The so-called Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it had fired two rockets at the facility.

Siniya refinery officials told Reuters “the rocket hit a fuel storage depot” inside the facility—located in Salahuddin’s Baiji district—, causing fires, which firefighters were working to put out the flames in the evening.

The refinery shut down operations to contain the emergency.

Baiji mayor Saad al-Khazal stated that the rockets’ launching point is unknown as of yet, and “we do not know the size of the losses and damages yet.”

The refinery is located in the Salahuddin province, some 230 kilometers north of Baghdad.

Siniya refinery operates with a capacity of 20 thousand barrels per day and is a supplier of oil derivatives to neighboring areas and feeds needed fuel to the power plant next to it.

The Iraqi government restarted it in 2017 after the Islamic State attacks damaged it in 2014 when the terror group controlled large swathes of Iraqi territory.

Killings and other insurgent-style operations have continued with disturbing regularity, notably in Iraq’s disputed territories, nearly three years after the Islamic State lost all its territorial claims in Iraq and Baghdad declared a final victory over the extremist organization.

Editing by Khrush Najari