ISIS kills 30 Kurds in Iraq

ISIS group fighters attempting to retake a town in northern Iraq held by Kurdish peshmerga forces have killed at least 30 Kurds, an Iraqi military spokesman said on Sunday.

The battle for the town of Gwer demonstrates the ISIS group’s ability to still launch offensives in Iraq, despite a month long campaign of airstrikes by a US-led coalition. And while an alliance of Iraqi troops, Kurdish fighters and Sunni and Shia militiamen have made some gains, their advance remains tenuous at best.

The fighting began on Saturday as the extremists approached Gwer, just outside of the northern city of Mosul, which the ISIS group controls, said Halg-urd Hekmat, a spokesman for Iraqi Kurdish forces in Irbil. Hekmat said he had no information about casualties suffered by the ISIS group. Backed by US-led airstrikes, Kurdish forces retook Gwer in August after the ISIS group’s offensive saw it seize a wide swath of Iraq. Kurdish fighters from Iraq also have deployed in small numbers to help Syrian Kurds battle the group’s fighters in the Syrian border town of Kobane.

Gwer sits near Irbil, the Kurdish regional capital. Retaking it would allow ISIS group fighters a new base to potentially launch assaults targeting the city. Earlier this month, peshmerga fighters also retook small villages around the militant-held town of Sinjar, opening a corridor to help hundreds of Yazidi families atop nearby Mount Sinjar. The ISIS group, holds about a third of Iraq and neighbouring Syria.