MOSUL, Iraq
At least 27 militants were killed Saturday night as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, attacked the village of Guver in Mosul province, but were repelled by Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces and U.S- led international coalition airstrikes, sources said.
The regional Peshmerga commander, Lieutenant Suphan Bakuriani, told The Anadolu Agency that ISIL attacked the Sultan Abdullah region of Guver village Saturday night. The village is located around 45 kilometers from Erbil, northern Iraq.
He said that Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces responded immediately, and that U.S- led international coalition warplanes attacked ISIL positions.
“27 ISIL militants were killed in the clashes,” Bakuriani said.
Guver village is seen as being strategic as it is located near Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq. The fall of Guver and Mahmur would make it easier for ISIL to attack Erbil.
Iraq has plunged into a security vacuum since June 2014, when ISIL stormed the northern Iraqi province Mosul and declared what it called a caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
The international coalition led by the U.S. has staged numerous airstrikes against ISIL militants who have taken control of large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria since mid-June.
