Iraqi security forces enter Beiji refinery
Iraqi Defence Minister Khaled al-Obeidi talks to a wounded soldier during his visit to a hospital in Baghdad November 15, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer
Raheem Salman| Agencies
Haider Al-Abadi
Saleh Jaber
Valerie Amos
Abdel Wahab Al-Sa'adi
Nouri Al-Maliki
Security forces entered Iraq's largest refinery for the first time Tuesday after months of battling ISIS militants who had surrounded it, a police colonel said.
U.S-led airstrikes have prevented the ultraextreme Islamist group, which swept through northern Iraq in June almost unopposed by the Iraqi army, from making significant further territorial gains for its self-proclaimed caliphate.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi sacked 26 military commanders this month for corruption in an apparent bid to show the government is serious about improving the performance of the army to counter ISIS.
At least 10,000 civilians have been killed and almost 20,000 injured in Iraq this year, while nearly 1.9 million people have been displaced, Mladenov said.
U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos told the council that humanitarian conditions in Iraq continue to deteriorate with 5.2 million people in need of assistance and over 2 million displaced from their homes including over 200,000 in the last 10 weeks.