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Oil trucks queue at the Iraqi Northern Oil Refinery near the town of Baiji, 10 November 2007. Getty

Last Updated Nov 11, 2014 3:00 PM EST

BAGHDAD - Iraqi soldiers battling the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) recaptured most of the town of Beiji, home to the country's largest oil refinery, state television and a provincial governor said Tuesday.

The strategic town, 155 miles north of Baghdad, will likely be a base for a future push to take back Saddam Hussein's hometown just to the south, one of the main prizes overrun by the extremists last summer. But troops backed by Shiite militias faced pockets of stiff resistance around Beiji, hindering their advance.

There was no word on the fate of the refinery, which lies on Beiji's northern outskirts, but the advances in the town could help break the five-month siege of the facility by ISIS. Since June, a small army unit inside the refinery, resupplied and reinforced by air, has successfully resisted wave after wave of extremist assaults.

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Lifting the siege of the refinery, which sits inside a sprawling complex, was likely the next objective in the campaign to rid Beiji of the militants, according to military officials reached in the town by telephone.

Hours after news from Beiji broke, a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a military outpost in the Tarmiyah district north of Baghdad, killing seven soldiers and wounding 13 others, according to police and hospital officials. Those killed included the post's commander, a major, and two other officers, a captain and lieutenant, they said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but it bore the hallmarks of the militant Sunnis of ISIS. Also, nine people were killed and 24 injured in three separate blasts in and around Baghdad.

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