Kurdish Peshmerga forces operating with US air cover Sunday regained ground from the Islamic State jihadist group near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, local media reported.
The Peshmerga captured the villages of Telsqof and Risala some 30 kilometres north of the city and were advancing cautiously in the direction of the strategic Mosul dam, Kurdish news site Rudaw reported quoting a local commander.
The reported advances come a day after nine US airstrikes hit Islamist State positions around the dam and near the Kurdish capital Erbil.
The US began airstrikes against Islamic State targets in northern Iraq 10 days ago, amid fears that the Peshmerga would be unable to hold off the advancing militants unaided.
The Islamic State, which split from al-Qaeda last year when it insisted on operating in both Iraq and neighbouring Syria, seized swathes of northern Iraq in a lightning offensive in June.
It then routed Peshmerga forces from ethnically mixed areas in Nineveh province around Mosul earlier this month, and has reportedly carried out massacres against the Yezidi religious minority.
The militants killed 100 Yezidi men Friday near the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, after they refused to convert to Islam, while women and children were detained and taken to an unknown place, residents told dpa.
More than 200,000 people, mostly Yezidis and Christians, have fled their homes since the group’s latest advances.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister David Cameron said the Islamic State was a threat to his own country’s security and “a humanitarian approach alone is not enough.” He warned that “if we do not act to stem the onslaught of this exceptionally dangerous terrorist movement, it will only grow stronger until it can target us on the streets of Britain.”
Cameron ruled out “sending armies to fight or occupy,” but said his government was considering what aid it could send to Kurdish forces, “from body armour to specialist counter-explosive equipment.” France was the first Western European country to announce that it would join the US in arming Kurdish forces in northern Iraq against the militants.