MOSUL, Iraq
Kurdish forces in northern Iraq reportedly regained the control of the strategic Mosul Dam from Islamic State militants on Sunday.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party spokesman Saeed Mamozinni told a press conference that the Kurdish forces, known as peshmerga, seized control of the country's largest dam, which had been captured by the militant group earlier this month.
Iraqi troops and U.S. war planes supported the Kurdish forces during their ground operation to take the dam, local sources said.
Militants affiliated with the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, captured the dam on August 6, a move that intensified concerns about the risk of flooding in the city.
The dam, located on the Tigris River in the western governorate of Ninawa, upstream from Mosul, provides electricity to the 1.7 million residents of Mosul.
U.S. fighter jets and drones hit 19 vehicles and one check point of the militant group Islamic State in northern Iraq on Sunday, American officials said.
"The 14 strikes conducted on Sunday in Iraq damaged or destroyed ten ISIL armed vehicles, seven ISIL Humvees, two ISIL armored personnel carriers, and one ISIL checkpoint." said a statement from U.S. Central Command.
The latest wave of attacks came a day after the U.S. announced nine airstrikes on IS targets.
Militants from the Islamic State captured Mosul in June and then surged across northern Iraq, taking control of several predominantly Sunni cities.
The U.S. has launched dozens of airstrikes on the Islamic State and its equipment since last week when President Barack Obama authorized U.S. forces to protect U.S. facilities in Erbil and allow humanitarian aid to reach civilians threatened by the militants.
The so-called Islamic State seeks to establish a caliphate in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Syria, erasing national boundaries drawn by Europeans in the wake of World War I.
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