Iraqi Kurds retake main dam from ISIS

Kurdish forces backed by U.S. warplanes battled to retake Iraq's largest dam from jihadist fighters. (AFP)

By Staff writer | Al Arabiya News
Sunday, 17 August 2014 

 

Iraqi Kurdish forces backed by U.S. air strikes on Sunday retook the country's largest dam from ISIS militants who seized it the previous week, Agence France-Presse reported.

A peshmerga officer and two political party officials told AFP that Kurdish forces had retaken Mosul Dam, which provides electricity and irrigation water for farming to much of the surrounding region in Iraq's northern Nineveh province.

The U.S. military confirmed it conducted nine airstrikes Saturday near Erbil and the dam in mosul in an effort to help Kurdish forces retake it from violent extremists.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said fighter jets and drones had destroyed or damaged four armored personnel carriers, seven armed vehicles, two Humvees and an armored vehicle.

Infographic: U.S. airstrikes in Iraq

(Design by Farwa Rizwan/ Al Arabiya News)

CENTCOM “conducted these strikes under authority to support humanitarian efforts in Iraq, as well as to protect U.S. personnel and facilities,” it added.

“All aircraft exited the strike areas safely.”
The Mosul dam, Iraq’s biggest, fell under control of fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) earlier this month.
Control of the dam could give the Sunni militants the ability to flood cities and cut off vital water and electricity supplies.

Kurdish forces

Kurdish forces attacked militants from ISIS who wrested the Mosul dam from them, a general told AFP.

“Kurdish peshmerga, with U.S. air support, have seized control of the eastern side of the dam” complex, Maj. Gen. Abdulrahman Korini said, adding that several militants had been killed.

Backed by the air strikes U.S. President Barack Obama ordered last week, the Peshmerga fighters have tried to claw back the ground they lost since the start of August.

The dam provides electricity to much of the region and is crucial to irrigation in vast farming areas in Nineveh province.

The recapture of Mosul dam would be one of the most significant achievements in a fight back that is also getting international material support.

Last Update: Sunday, 17 August 2014 KSA 19:54 - GMT 16:54