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Iraq Resumes Work at Taji Gas Plant 2 Days after Deadly ISIS Attack | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Smoke rises from gas storage tanks after a bomb attack against a state-run cooking gas factory in Taji at Baghdad’s northern outskirts, Iraq May 15, 2016. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani


Iraq’s Oil Ministry has resumed work at a state-run natural gas plant in Baghdad’s northern outskirts, two days after a coordinated dawn assault by ISIS militants left at least 14 dead.

Deputy Minister Hamid Younis said that work at the plant’s three production lines returned “to normal levels” on Tuesday in Taji.

The town is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Baghdad.

Younis said the plant was back to full capacity of producing 30,000 cooking gas cylinders a day.

He said Sunday’s attack only damaged two gas storages and a few pipelines.

In the attack, a suicide car bomber hit the facility’s main gate, followed by other suicide bombers and militants who broke into the plant and clashed with security forces.

ISIS, which controls swathes of the country’s north and west, has carried out a string of bombings in the past two weeks that killed more than 140 people.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Saturday the militants were taking advantage of a political crisis in the country, sparked by his attempt to overhaul its quota-based governing system, to conduct bombings in areas under nominal government control.

A U.S.-led coalition backing the Iraqi government in its fight against ISIS has been training army forces for months at a military base located in Taji.