UPDATE 1-Iraqi security forces retake most of town near Baghdad from Islamic State -local officials

BAGHDAD // Security forces and Kurdish peshmerga fighters regained control of two key towns in Iraq on Saturday, dealing a blow to ISIL militanst who have siezed lare parts of the country.

State forces retook most of the town of Jurf Al Sakhar near Baghdad from ISIL, the biggest gains in months of fighting for the strategic area, local officials said on Saturday.

In the north, Kurdish forces on Saturday retook the northern town of Zumar from ISIL after weeks of fighting.

Full control of Jurf Al Sakhar could allow Iraqi authorities to prevent the Sunni extremists militants from edging closer to the capital and maintaining connections to their strongholds in western Anbar province as well as infiltrating the mainly Shiite south.

“We have managed to push out [ISIL] terrorists from the town of Jurf Al Sakhar today and now we are raising the Iraqi flag over the government offices,” said the provincial governor, Sadiq Madloul.

Some ISIL fighters had fled towards the western city of Falluja, which is held by the group, while fighting still raged near a bridge linking Jurf Al Sakhar to Anbar, the Iraqi security forces said.

Raad Hamza, head of the Hilla Provincial Council said there hads been a “significant collapse” among ISIL fighters, with continuous attacks by Iraqi army helicopters since Friday.

Peshmerga fighters form Iraq’s Kurdish autonomous region said air support from the US-led coalition against ISIL enabled them to regain zontrol of Zumar and 11 surrounding villages.

“After clashes that began this morning and with American air support, we were able to force militants from the centre” of Zumar, Major General Karim Atuti said.

Zumar is about 60 kilometres north-west of Mosul, the first city to fall in an ISIL offensive in June.

Federal troops withdrew from Zumar, and peshmerga forces occupied it. But ISIL drove them out during a new campaign in August, pushing them back toward regional capital Erbil.

Their advance helped to spark an US-led air campaign in Iraq that now involves several countries and has been expanded to Syria.

The US military central command said the anti-ISIL coalition carried out 23 airstrikes in Iraq and one in Syria on Friday and Saturday.

Eleven strikes targeted ISIL units, buildings, positions and vehicles near the strategic Mosul Dam.

It said the air raid in Syria destroyed an artillery piece near near Kobani, the Kurdish town near the border with Turkey that has been under assault from ISIL since late September.

ISIL fighters on Saturday launched a new offensive on Kobani after shelling the area from their positions nearby, activists and a Kurdish official said.

Heavy fighting took place in Kobani in the afternoon and many mortar shells were fired into the town.

* Reuters and Agence France-Presse