Kurdish Iraqi fighters were reported to be advancing slowly toward a strategic dam in northern Iraq on Sunday, a day after some of the heaviest U.S. bombardment to date targeting Islamic militant positions in the region.
Media reports indicated that the Kurdish forces, known as peshmerga, were pushing west toward the Mosul Dam, the nation’s largest, which mostly fell under the control of Islamic State rebels earlier this month. Kurdish fighters on Sunday took back several villages from the militants, including the town of Tel Skuf, according to news reports in Iraq.
The Rudaw Kurdish news site quoted a peshmerga commander as saying the Kurds had launched a “wide-ranging” assault in coordination with U.S. airstrikes. But the commander and Western officials monitoring the fighting said that progress was being slowed by explosives planted in the ground by fighters of the Islamic State.
The Al Qaeda breakaway group has seized vast portions of northern Iraq, including the city of Mosul, the nation’s second-largest city.
Kurdish forces, aided by U.S. air power, are trying to regain control of territory and strategic towns and facilities, including the Mosul Dam, a key source of power and water for northern Iraq.
Kurdish fighters, who retreated earlier this month in the face of the extremist advance, have said they are outgunned by the Islamic State fighters. Kurdish authorities have requested additional arms and heavy weapons from the United States and Europe.
The Islamic State offensive this month caused more than 200,000 civilians to flee their homes, mostly minority Christians or members of the Yazidi sect. The vast majority have fled into Iraq’s Kurdish region, taking up residence in camps and schools, under highway bridges and wherever they can find shelter. The United Nations has declared a Level 3 humanitarian emergency in Iraq, the most severe grade of humanitarian crisis.
On Saturday, in a major expansion of the air campaign in Iraq, U.S. warplanes and armed drones launched nine airstrikes targeting Islamic State vehicles near the Mosul Dam and close to Irbil, capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region.
Times staff writer Shashank Bengali in Baghdad contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times
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