Iraq Kurds press anti-jihadist drive as US, UK turn up heat

Kurdish peshmerga fighters backed by US warplanes pressed a counter-offensive against jihadists Monday after retaking Iraq's largest dam alongside federal forces, as the United States and Britain stepped up their military involvement.
      
The recapture of Mosul dam marks the biggest prize yet clawed back from Islamic State (IS) jihadists since they launched a major offensive in northern Iraq in June, sweeping Iraqi security forces aside.
      
US aircraft are carrying out strikes in support of the forces battling IS militants, who have declared a "caliphate" straddling vast areas of Iraq and Syria.
      
The jihadists also came under attack in their Syrian stronghold of Raqa by Syria's air force for a second straight day on Monday.
      
"The planes are striking and the peshmerga are advancing," a Kurdish fighter told AFP on Monday near the shores of the vast Mosul dam.
      
AFP journalists heard jets flying overhead, and saw smoke rising from the site of a strike that a peshmerga member said targeted one of the entrances to the dam.
      
Fighting on Monday also broke out in an area south of the barrage while engineering teams worked to clear booby traps and bombs left by jihadists, said Kawa Khatari, an official from Iraq's main Kurdish party.
                      
Iraqi security spokesman Lieutenant General Qassem Atta confirmed on Monday that Mosul dam was entirely liberated in a joint operation by Iraqi "anti-terrorism forces and peshmerga forces with aerial support".
      
Atta added on state television that while the dam had been retaken, fighting was continuing in adjoining facilities.
     
The Mosul dam...