Iraqi Kurdish Fighters Seize Strategic Border Post

Iraqi Kurdish fighters captured a strategic post  along the border with Syria on Tuesday.

The border crossing was captured by driving out the Islamic State militants in heavy fighting, which included  close quarter sniping.

Kurds from the Syrian side of the border also helped in the fight to capture the  post. The capture of the crossing by the Kurdish fighters will make it difficult for the Islamic State to operate from both sides of the border.

An Iraqi Kurdish source said that the Peshmerga fighters established control over the Rabia border crossing through fierce fighting that began before dawn.

"It's the most important strategic point for crossing," the source said, reports Reuters.

The Shammar tribe, one of the largest tribes in northwestern Iraq, cooperated with the Peshmerga fighters in the battle against the Islamic State.

"Rabia is completely liberated. All of the Shammar are with the Peshmerga and there is full cooperation between us," Abdullah Yawar, a leading member of the tribe, said.

He also said that the Shammar tribe supported the Peshmerga as an agreement was reached with the president of Iraq's Kurdish region to join the fight against the common enemy.

The militants sniped at them from inside houses and from the windows of a hospital in Rabia, the fighters said.

"They're such good fighters," said one soldier. "They're fighting with weapons the Iraqi military abandoned - so, American weapons really," he said, reports the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, two British Tornado jets struck a heavy weapons post and an armored vehicle used by the Islamic State in northwest Iraq, British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said. The airstrikes on Tuesday were Britain's first against the Islamic State militants in Iraq.