ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - As part of the offensive on Thursday Iraqi forces engaged Islamic State (ISIS) militants in fighting in the village of Nasser. A Peshmerga commander told Rudaw that in the attempted assault the Iraqis vehicles got stuck in mud and were forced to retreat under ISIS fire. Other Iraqi forces laid down heavy suppressing machine gun fire to enable that assaulting force to retreat. In the process one of the Iraqi soldiers were killed and 10 others wounded. Later on Thursday Iraq sent reinforcements to the village. ISIS militants were seen running away from the houses in the village. US-led coalition warplanes also gave close air support to these advances. Also early on Thursday morning Sunni militia forces fighting alongside the Iraqis began an operate to help retake villages in southeast Mosul. They are fighting alongside the Peshmerga and together they seek to retake 13 villages from ISIS, some of which that group was using to fire on Peshmerga positions. "With all the ammunition they [the Iraqis] have ultimately they are too weak," said Peshmerga soldier Nazim Zinal to Rudaw. "If we had the equipment we would have been near Mosul by now." Zinal's sentiment was echoed by Peshmerga Lieutenant Farid Sabir, "They [the Iraqi army] are not as fast as the Peshmerga who can make advances with basic weapons. They don't make any progress even with their modern weapons," he said.
