UPDATE: Day two offensive against ISIS liberates more villages; 35 militants killed

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdish Peshmerga forces resumed a wide-ranging assault for a second day Monday on the Gwer front, liberating three more villages and killing 35 Islamic State (ISIS) militants in an operation backed by the US-led coalition.

 

In an operation that began early in the morning, the Peshmerga liberated the villages of Hasudiya and Kanhashai Bchuk and within a few hours they had recaptured Kanhasai Gawra village and reached the Gwer bridge. Operations also began on the Khazir front.

 

The Peshmerga said they rescued six families in the village of Shanaf after it was recaptured from ISIS on Sunday.

 

On the first day of the offensive, the Peshmerga recaptured nine of the eleven villages they aimed to liberate in Nineveh province, east of Erbil. The villages freed Sunday were Qarqasha, Qaradag, Setyh, Shanaf, Tal Hamid, Abzakh, al-Hamrah, Omar Mendan and Sayyud Hayyasi.

 

The Peshmerga accomplished 80 percent of their goal on the first day of the offensive, Mansour Barzani, a commander in the Kurdish special forces, told Rudaw on the front line on Sunday evening.

 

Some 2,500 Peshmerga were involved in the major operation launched against ISIS in the early hours of Sunday on the Makhmour-Gwer and Khazir fronts. More than 100 ISIS militants were killed during the offensive.

 

Kurdish President Masoud Barzani, who is commander-in-chief of the Peshmerga, supervised the operation.