Kurdish forces repel multiple IS attacks, kill 70 militants

ERBIL (K24) - Peshmerga forces of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq repelled multiple coordinated Islamic State (IS) attacks in northern Nineveh Province on Wednesday. Peshmerga forces killed at least 70 Islamist militants in Newaran, Bashiqa, Khazir, and Zerdik mountain front lines, according to an online statement released by the Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC) official Twitter page.

A senior Peshmerga source who did not want to be named told K24 a phone call that six Kurdish soldiers were killed during the clashes, and at least, ten others were wounded.

The KRSC said in the online statement that 11 IS vehicles including three car bombs (VBIED's) were destroyed by the US-led anti-IS coalition airstrikes and by German MILAN anti-tank guided rockets used by Peshmerga forces. The statement added that several IS suicide bombers were killed during the attacks.

The KRSC statement added that more than 25 airstrikes were conducted by the anti-IS coalition that support Peshmerga forces.

Elsewhere, four Turkish soldiers were wounded on the Bashiqa front when the recently reinforced training camp where they were stationed came under Katyusha rocket attack launched by IS militants, said the General Staff of Turkish Armed Forces in an online statement released Wednesday on its website.

Last month, Turkey reinforced a training camp northeast of Mosul and added an unconfirmed number of several hundred soldiers, military advisers, and equipment, including tanks. The base is meant for training anti-IS Arab Sunni fighters who may spearhead a long-anticipated assault on the city of Mosul.