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Kurdish cameraman killed, reporter wounded in battles against IS near Iraq's Mosul

Xinhua, August 15, 2016 Adjust font size:

A Kurdish TV cameraman was killed and a reporter wounded on Sunday while covering battles near the major Islamic State (IS) stronghold in Mosul in northern Iraq, an official from the regional journalists' syndicate told Xinhua.

Mostafa Sa'ed, a cameraman of Kurdistan TV satellite channel, was killed during the clashes between the Kurdish security forces, known as Peshmerga, and the IS militants in east of the city Mosul, some 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, Akram Sulaiman, an official of Kurdistan Journalists' Syndicate said.

The clashes also left Hyman Nankli, a reporter for the Kurdish TV, seriously wounded at the scene, Sulaiman said.

Kurdistan TV is a Kurdish satellite television station which belongs to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led by the regional President Masoud Barzani. It began broadcasting in 1999 and it was the first Kurdish satellite station in the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan.

The incident occurred while they were covering the battles against the IS in east and northeast of Mosul, as the troops managed to retook control of nine villages after driving out the IS militants.

Earlier in the day, a Kurdish security source told Xinhua that the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, backed by heavy artillery shelling and the U.S.-led air strikes, launched an offensive at dawn against the IS positions on villages scattered in the northeast of Mosul.

The extremist militants fought back with mortar shells and machine guns and detonated roadside bombs and booby-trapped cars planted on the roads of the Peshmerga forces, the source said.

The battles have so far killed 47 IS militants and at least three Peshmerga members, with 15 others injured, according to the source.

The Iraqi army and the Peshmerga forces are now fighting to seize back positions around Mosul amid a major offensive to liberate the whole city.

Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, has been under the IS control since June 2014, when the Iraqi government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, giving opportunities for the IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions. Endit