Kurdish fighters pushed to retake Iraq's largest dam on Sunday in an attempt to reverse gains by Islamic State insurgents who have overrun much of the country's north, officials said, according to The Associated Press.
Islamic State militants have seized several towns and oilfields as well as Mosul Dam in recent weeks, possibly giving them the ability to flood cities or cut off water and electricity supplies, the AP reported.
Asked about a Kurdish push to dislodge the militants on Sunday, a Kurdish official said they had not retaken the dam itself but had seized "most of the surrounding area," according to the AP.
Islamic State militants have told residents in the area to leave, according to an engineer who works at the site, the AP reported.
The engineer said the militants told him they were planting roadside bombs along roads leading in and out of the facility, possibly in fear of an attack by Kurdish fighters who have been bolstered by United States airstrikes, according to the AP.
American planes, deployed over Iraq because of the Islamic State's advances for the first time since the U.S. troop withdrawal in 2011, had been striking targets near Mosul Dam over the last 24 hours, peshmerga spokesman Halgurd Hikmat said, the AP reported.
"God willing we will regain control of the dam today," Hikmat said, according to the AP. U.S. officials said last week the U.S. government was directly supplying weapons to Kurdish peshmerga fighters.
Witnesses said Kurdish forces have recaptured the mainly Christian towns of Batmaiya and Telasqaf, 18 miles from Mosul, the closest they have come to the city since Islamic State insurgents drove government forces out in June, the AP reported.
The insurgents have also tightened their security checkpoints in Mosul, conducting more intensive inspections of vehicles and identification cards, witnesses said, according to the AP.
