Kurdish Forces Almost in Complete Control of Iraq Dam; Oust IS Militants

Kurdish officials said that they were almost in complete control of Iraq's largest dam in the northern part of the country after ousting the Islamic State rebels.

On Sunday, it was learnt that Kurdish forces had been firing mortars and explosives at the militants in a bid to retake the strategic Mosul dam.

The Kurdish forces -the Peshmerga - had taken control of the eastern side of the structure by Sunday evening, a spokesman for the group stated. Peshmerga spokesman Halgord Hikmat had told CNN that clashes were going on over the western side though.

The Kurdish ground forces, supported by US air strikes, launched the operation to seize the Mosul dam, Sunday morning.

Sources from the Kurdish side said they were in the process of clearing mines and booby traps from the area around the dam, a process which could take several hours, BBC reports.

The strategic facility was taken over by IS militants on August 7.

The dam supplies water and electricity to northern Iraq and there had been concerns that the rebels could use the facility to flood areas downstream.

The Islamic State, previously known as Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), has taken over major towns and other territories in Iraq and Syria in the past few months. If the news of Kurds recapturing Iraq's largest dam is true, it would be the first major blow to the militants' operations.

Engineering studies have shown that a failure of the dam could result in flooding of towns and cities all the way to Baghdad, an official said. The hydroelectric dam on the Tigris River - about 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of the city of Mosul - is a key source of electricity, irrigation and flood protection; which means any damage to the dam could be catastrophic.