ERBIL
The Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces on Wednesday morning took control of two villages from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, according to a peshmerga source.
The villages are near Mosul in the Erbil province of northern Iraq,
“The peshmerga forces started their attack at 4 a.m. local time (0100GMT) after airstrikes by the U.S-led international coalition,” Rashid Haji Ali, a Peshmerga commander, told The Anadolu Agency.
ISIL militants were forced to retreat from the two villages, because of intensive coalition airstrikes and the peshmerga’s ground offensive operation, the commander said.
“We are attempting to control all the area around Sinjar mountain,” Ali added.
ISIL controls most of the Sinjar, which is 77 miles west of Mosul and home to many Ezidi Kurds.
The Ezidi population is estimated at 600,000 and a number of Ezidi minority groups live in Turkey, Syria, Iran, Georgia and Armenia.
Iraq has been in a security vacuum since June, when ISIL stormed the northern province of Mosul and declared what it called a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria.
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