HASSAN AL-SHAM, Iraq--Iraqi Kurdish fighters are slowly laying
the groundwork for a prolonged military offensive against Islamic
State forces by reclaiming strategic villages on the northern Iraqi
plains as they prepare to serve as the front-line fighters in
America's new Middle East conflict.
Backed by a small number of U.S. airstrikes, lightly armed
Peshmerga forces routed Islamic State extremists from this deserted
village on the rolling plains separating Kurdistan from the
militant stronghold in Mosul.
The tentative control of Hassan al-Sham is the latest military
victory for Kurdish forces making painstaking progress in
reclaiming territory Islamic State militants captured during their
summer offensive.
"We've succeeded in stopping them on this front," said Rowsch
Nuri Shaways, the former deputy prime minister leading the military
campaign. "We're on the offensive and now we control the plains of
Mosul."
That battlefield boast overstates the gains Kurdish fighters
have made and understates the daunting challenge Iraqi and Kurdish
forces face in marching the 30 miles between here and Mosul, which
Islamic State fighters have controlled since June.
Kurdish forces and Iraq's national military are ill-equipped for
urban street battles with Islamic State fighters. U.S. airstrikes,
without better intelligence from the ground, are likely to be less
effective in Iraqi cities, where there will be a greater risk of
killing civilians. And the international coalition taking shape to
defeat Islamic State extremists is in no rush to give Kurdish and
Iraqi forces the advanced weapons they want to keep the pressure on
their adversaries.
Meanwhile in Syria, Kurdish forces called on Sunday for outside
help as the United Nations said 70,000 people had fled into Turkey
to escape an Islamic State offensive on regional capital of Ayn
al-Arab, a strategic border town.
For now, Kurdish fighters in Iraq are relying on a growing
international supply of ammunition, mortars, machine guns and other
modest weaponry in the counteroffensive making halting gains.
"Anywhere you see Peshmerga fighters you are safe," a Kurdish
soldier said. Minutes later, a mortar fired by unseen Islamic State
fighters slammed into the village, sending a dark plume of smoke
curling above a black Islamic State flag waving from the roof of an
apartment building.
Kurdish forces pushed Islamic State fighters out of Hassan
al-Sham, but booby traps the fighters left behind have slowed their
efforts to secure the village and allow its residents to return.
The ability of retreating Islamic State fighters to fire mortars
into the village made it clear that they were much closer than
Kurdish officers claimed.
Before retreating from towns and villages they held for weeks,
Islamic State forces have booby-trapped faucets, curtains, cabinets
and water tanks, soldiers said. They have ignited pools of oil to
create smoke cover meant to conceal their positions from American
surveillance drones and fighter jets.
In Hassan al-Sham, the fighters blew up three main bridges
leading to the village. The main road leading to the bridges is
littered with unexploded car bombs, suspicious gas tanks and
mysterious canisters that have transformed the paved road into a
dangerous car-bomb alley.
Before driving down the road one recent morning, a Kurdish
captain leaned over to his aide, kissed his cheek and said
farewell. "Goodbye my friend," he told his aide.
"If I have ever done you any wrong, please forgive me," the
soldier replied as the pickup truck lurched down a dirt hillside
and onto the road. The truck sped past a propane canister placed in
the middle of the street and swerved around a pile of cloth set in
the center of the pavement.
"There are so many explosives," he said as the pickup truck
passed a blue station wagon loaded down by two red barrels he said
he believed to be filled with explosives. "We have already removed
25 bombs in this half mile of road."
Ten yards away, a similar red barrel lay in the back of a blue
hatchback with a rope running from its front windshield to its rear
bumper.
Car bombs have become a common Islamic State weapon, Kurdish
forces said.
Earlier that day, Kurdish fighters said they used mortars to
destroy an Islamic State truck bomb speeding toward soldiers
guarding the town.
"This has already become a dirty war," said Capt. Naquib Ayoub,
one of the officers leading the fight to secure Hassan al-Sham.
As they press their counteroffensive, Kurdish leaders are urging
the U.S. and its allies to step up their airstrikes, which have so
largely been contained to a couple of targets each day.
If the U.S. expects to rely on Peshmerga fighters to lead the
battlefield charge, it will have to do more in the coming weeks to
give them the weapons, training and airstrikes needed to defeat
Islamic State militants, Kurdish officers said.
"The U.S. airstrikes helped a lot," said Mr. Shaways, the
Kurdish politician nominated to be finance minister in the new
Iraqi government.
"I wish it was a little bit more, but it was enough to boost the
morale of our fighters," he said.
Write to Dion Nissenbaum at dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com
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