BAGHDAD—Islamic State 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 Sunday.
The battle for the town of Gwer demonstrates the Islamic State group’s ability to still launch offensives in Iraq, despite a monthslong campaign of airstrikes by a U.S.-led coalition. And while an alliance of Iraqi troops, Kurdish fighters and Sunni and Shiitte militiamen have made some gains, their advance remains tenuous at best.
The fighting began Saturday as the extremists approached Gwer, just outside of the northern city of Mosul, which the Islamic State group controls, said Halgurd Hekmat, a spokesman for Iraqi Kurdish forces in Irbil. Hekmat said he had no information about casualties suffered by the Islamic State group.
Backed by U.S.-led airstrikes, Kurdish forces retook Gwer in August after the Islamic State 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 Kobani.
