Rudaw footage of carnage in Shingal

Fierce fighting is underway in the town of Shingal as thousands of Kurdish Peshmerga battle to wrest the strategic town from the grip of the Islamic state, or ISIS.

Rudaw teams at the battlefield report intense street battles in the western part of town where ISIS is counter-attacking with car bombs, mortars and machine guns.

ISIS militants captured the Yezidi town in August 2014 where they killed hundreds of civilians, took thousands captive and displaced tens of thousands more. The atrocities in Shingal made broadcast around the world and prompted the United States to begin airstrikes in the area.