Kurds take 10 villages from Islamic State in north Iraq

Kurdish forces in northern Iraq drove Daesh militants out of ten villages in Kirkuk province on Wednesday with the support of US-led coalition airstrikes, Kurdish military sources told Reuters. The regional government’s peshmerga forces have been battling IS militants since the extremist group swept across much of the area as well as western Iraq in the summer of 2014.

The small vehicles are reportedly being imported by the Islamic State from Turkey.

An aide to a Kurdish commander taking part in the offensive said five peshmerga had been killed, majority by improvised explosive devices.

The Kurds already control most of the territory they claim as their own, and have little incentive to push further into predominantly Sunni Muslim Arab towns and villages.

Speaking to ARA News in Kirkuk, Barzani Ahmed, a member of the Peshmerga, said: “Our forces also liberated Diwayzat village in Makhmur area, west of Erbil, after clashes with terrorists of Daesh (ISIS) on Tuesday”.

They have pushed back the ultra-radical Sunni insurgents in northern Iraq, effectively expanding the area of their autonomous region in the process.