Kurdish Peshmerga forces recapture key Iraqi village from ISIS militants

Kurdish Peshmerga forces said they recaptured a strategic village in northern Iraq from ISIS on Friday. Sources told Al Jazeera on Friday that at least three Peshmerga fighters died when the group captured the village of Sultan Abd’Allah, just 60km away from the Kurdish regional capital, Erbil. Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow, reporting from Erbil, said fighters had engaged in house-to-house battles with ISIS fighters in the village, demonstrating the lengths to which the group had to go in countering ISIS.

One commander said the group had limited firepower, and were fighting with old AK-47s and that their other weapons were from the Iran-Iraq war 25 years ago.

Al-Jazeera reporter at the scene

A renewed push by ISIS in the north in August drove Kurdish forces back towards the capital of their autonomous region, helping to spark a U.S.-led campaign of air strikes against ISIS. That effort has since been expanded to training for Iraqi forces aimed at preparing them as quickly as possible to join the fight. Iraqi soldiers and police, Kurdish forces, Shia militias and Sunni tribesmen have succeeded in regaining some ground from ISIS. But large parts of the country, including three major cities, remain outside Baghdad’s control.

World Peshmerga