Kurdish forces repulse Daesh attack south of Erbil

Erbil, Iraq — Kurdish peshmerga forces have repulsed a major attack by Daesh southwest of Iraqi Kurdistan's capital Erbil, officials said Wednesday.

"The attack which was launched at 8:00pm (1700 GMT on Tuesday) was foiled. It lasted four hours and we killed 34 IS [Daesh] members," Sirwan Barzani, the local peshmerga commander, told AFP.

He said around 300 jihadists had attacked the villages of Sultan Abdallah and Tal Al Rim, between the towns of Gweyr and Makhmur, an area about 40 kilometres southwest of Erbil.

"Daesh was not able to use heavy military vehicles or car bombs due to trenches dug out by peshmerga on the front lines," said Barzani, also the nephew of Kurdish leader Massud Barzani.

He said the Daesh offensive achieved no gains and added that his operation received air support from the US-led coalition which has carried out hundreds of strikes against Daesh since August 2014.

"The clashes are over now. We are collecting their bodies," said Najat Ali, the deputy peshmerga commander on the Makhmur front.

Gweyr and Makhmur were among the very first targets of US air strikes against the jihadists six months ago.