reestablished the siege of the refinery. On 17 December, Peshmerga forces, backed by 50 US-led coalition airstrikes on ISIL positions, launched an offensive to liberate Sinjar and to break the partial ISIL siege of the Sinjar Mountains. In less than two days, the siege was broken. After ISIL forces retreated, Kurdish fighters were initially faced with the clearing out mines around the area, but quickly opened a land corridor to those mountains, enabling Yazidis to be evacuated. The operation left 100 ISIL fighters dead. Later on 21 December, Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters south of the mountain range reached Peshmerga lines, thus linking their two fronts. The next day, the YPG broke through ISIL lines, thus opening a corridor from Syria to the town of Sinjar. By the evening, the Peshmerga took control of much of Sinjar. 2015 In late January, Iraqi forces recaptured the entire province of Diyala from the Islamic State. Furthermore, 21 January saw the launching of the Mosul offensive (2015) in which Peshmerga forces captured large amount of territory surrounding Mosul. On 2 March, the Second Battle of Tikrit began and after more than a month of hard fighting, government troops and pro-Iranian Shiite militias overcame ISIL fighters and took Tikrit. Shia groups claimed that they had killed Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri but this was later debunked This success was off-set in late May, by ISIL's capture of the provincial capital of Ramadi in Anbar Governorate. On 17 July, a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb in a crowded marketplace in the city of Khan Bani Saad during Eid al-Fitr celebrations, killing 120–130 people and injuring 130 more. Twenty more people were reported missing since the bombing. On 13 August, a suicide bomber detonated a truck bomb in a crowded marketplace in Sadr City, Baghdad, killing at least 75 people and injuring 212 more. On 27 August, a suicide bomber assassinated General Abdel Rahman Abu Ragheef, deputy commander of operations in the province of Anbar, and Brigadier Safeen Abdel Majeed, a divisional commander. ISIL forces lost Sinjar on November 13 to Kurdish forces. During 16–17 December, ISIL forces mounted a major offensive north-east of Mosul against Kurdish position but were repelled. Starting December 22, the Iraqi Army began a campaign to recapture Ramadi. On December 28, Iraq declared Ramadi liberated from ISIL forces and under the control of the Iraqi government. 2016 Iraqi forces regained control of Hīt