Peshmerga forces kill 17 ISIL Takfiris in northern Iraq

Iraq’s Kurdish Peshmerga forces have killed more than a dozen members of the ISIL Takfiri terror group during a fierce exchange of gunfire in the northern province of Nineveh.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) spokesman in the northern city of Mosul, Saeed Mamouzini, said the Peshmerga fighters thwarted an ISIL attack on the town of Sinjar, situated over 400 kilometers (250 miles) northwest of the capital, Baghdad, on Friday and killed 18 terrorists in the process, Iraq’s al-Sumaria satellite TV network reported on Friday.

He added that four vehicles belonging to the extremists were also destroyed during the fighting.

Kurdish fighters have extended their control over a large territory north of Iraq after pushing the ISIL terrorists further away from the strategic city of Kirkuk.

“We are repelling ISIL’s advance here. These are Kurdish regions, but we are not occupying forces, but [rather] defensive units protecting all the different religious and ethnic groups living here,” Saleh Amine, a field commander of Peshmerga forces,reported.

The commander-in-chief of Kirkuk’s border guards also stated that the ISIL militants have been pushed backed closer to Mosul.

“The Kurdish Peshmerga are currently in full control of the outskirts of Kirkuk. We are cooperating with Kurdish troops to maintain security there. When the ISIL first captured Mosul, they advanced to regions 10 kilometers from Kirkuk but right now they are 55 kilometers away from the city,” Fakhreddine Saeed said.

With the battles raging on in the western province of Anbar and the mop-up operations by the Iraqi security forces going on in the northern province of Salahuddin, Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces are apparently making use of these conditions to further tighten the noose on ISIL militants in regions south of Kirkuk.

ISIL launched an offensive in Iraq in June last year and took control of Mosul, before sweeping through parts of the country’s heartland.