Iraqi security forces have retaken most of the town of Jurf al-Sakhar near Baghdad from Islamic State militants, the biggest gains in months of fighting for the strategic area, senior local officials said on Saturday.
Full control of the town could allow Iraqi authorities to prevent the Sunni insurgents from edging closer to the capital and maintaining connections to their strongholds in western Anbar province as well as infiltrating the mainly Shi'ite south.
"We have managed to push out Islamic State terrorists from the town of Jurf al-Sakhar today and now we are raising the Iraqi flag over the government offices," provincial governor Sadiq Madloul said.
In the same regard, Kurdish forces retook the northern Iraqi town of Zumar and several nearby villages from Islamic State early on Saturday after heavy coalition air strikes against the Islamist insurgents, security sources said.
A Kurdish intelligence officer in Zumar said peshmerga forces had advanced from five directions in the early morning and encountered fierce resistance, but ultimately prevailed. A spokesman for the peshmerga ministry also said Zumar was now in Kurdish hands.
Zumar was one of the first Kurdish-controlled towns to be overrun in August by Islamic State militants who went on to threaten the autonomous region's capital, prompting air strikes by the United States - a campaign since joined by Britain and France.
If the Kurds are able to keep Zumar, it would make it easier for them to advance on Sinjar, where Islamic State militants are besieging members of Iraq's Yazidi minority on a mountain.
Helped by the air strikes, Kurdish forces have regained ground from Islamic State but progress has been hampered by a lack of heavy weaponry and by homemade bombs and booby-traps laid by the militants.
The Kurds claimed victory in Zumar in September, only to withdraw from the town again after suffering heavy losses.
The U.S. Central Command said on Saturday that the United States and its allies conducted 22 air strikes against Islamic State forces in Iraq on Friday and Saturday.
U.S. warplanes also destroyed an Islamic State artillery piece near Kobani, Syria, officials said Saturday.
The 22 strikes in Iraq included attacks in the frequently targeted areas near the vital Mosul dam, the city of Fallujah and the northern city of Bayji, home of an oil refinery.
The Iraq strikes hit large and small Islamic State units, buildings, vehicles and fighting positions, Central Command said.
The bomber, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft used in the air strikes all returned safely, U.S. officials said.
REUTERS
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