Kurds, backed by US, fight to retake Iraq's largest dam

Kurdish forces backed by US warplanes battled on Saturday to retake Iraq's largest dam from jihadist fighters, a day after militants carried out a "massacre" of dozens of villagers.

Two months of violence have brought Iraq to the brink of breakup, and world powers relieved by the exit of longtime prime minister Nuri al-Maliki were sending aid to the displaced and arms to the Kurds.

Kurdish forces attacked the Islamic State fighters who had wrested the Mosul dam from them a week earlier, a general told AFP.

"Kurdish Peshmerga, with US air support, have seized control of the eastern side of the dam" complex, Major General Abdulrahman Korini told AFP, saying several jihadists had been killed.

The US military said it carried out nine airstrikes on Saturday near the dam and the Kurdish capital, Arbil, in an effort to help the Kurdish forces.

"The nine airstrikes conducted thus far destroyed or damaged four armored personnel carriers, seven armed vehicles, two Humvees and an armored vehicle," the US Central Command said in a statement.

It said the strikes were conducted with a mix of fighters and drones, adding, "All aircraft exited the strike areas safely."

The Central Command said the strikes were aimed at supporting humanitarian efforts in Iraq and protecting US personnel and facilities there.

Buoyed by the airstrikes that US President Barack Obama ordered last week, the Peshmerga fighters have tried to win back the ground they have lost since the start of August.

The dam on the Tigris provides electricity to much of the region, and is crucial to irrigation in vast farming areas in Nineveh province.

The recapture of Mosul Dam would be one of the most significant achievements in a fightback that is also getting international material support.

A day after the European Union foreign ministers encouraged the bloc's member countries to send arms to the Kurds, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited Iraq.

Steinmeier, whose country hosts the largest diaspora of the Yazidi religious group in the West, visited the autonomous region to assess the needs of the displaced, many of whom are Yazidis, and the Peshmerga.

AFP - AP

(China Daily 08/18/2014 page11)