World Bulletin/News Desk

Iraqi government forces got within a kilometre (half a mile) of the country's biggest refinery on Friday, the closest they have come to breaking an ISIL siege of the facility during months of fighting, two army officers and a witness said.

Fighting raged in a village between the complex and the nearby town of Baiji, near a deserted area believed to contain roadside bombs planted by the militants that has been preventing an advance, they said.

"We are about one kilometre from the refinery. Daesh (ISIL) militants are escaping to the direction of a river. Airplanes are targeting them," said an army captain.

A witness said security forces crossed a bridge close to the refinery, 200 km north of the capital.

ISIL fighters seized the city of Baiji and surrounded the sprawling refinery in June during a lightning campaign through northern Iraq.