Baghdad, Aug 11 (IANS): Kurdish forces retook two towns from the Islamic State (IS) militants in northern Iraq Sunday as the US military continued airstrikes against the extremist group.
"The Kurdish Peshmerga forces in cooperation with the Kurdistan Workers' Party seized full control of Makhmour district," Xinhua quoted a Kurdish anti-terrorism commander as saying.
The Peshmerga troops also seized control of Gwer, some 40 km southwest of Arbil, after they defeated the IS insurgents early Sunday.
Gwer and Makhmour had been taken over by the IS militants few days ago, posing an imminent threat to the Kurdish capital.
The US military Saturday continued to launch four airstrikes against the extremist Sunni militants, who were previously known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the US Department of Defense said on its official Twitter account.
The Us airstrikes continued Sunday.