ARBIL: Islamic State jihadist fighters seized two small oilfields in northern Iraq on Saturday after a fierce battle with Kurdish peshmerga forces, Kurdish officials said.

The jihadist attack launched late on Friday on the Zumar area, northwest of Mosul, Iraq’s second city, drew Kurdish forces deeper into a conflict which has raged for close to two months.

The jihadists “attacked a peshmerga post in Zumar and a fierce battle erupted,” said an official in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of Iraq’s two main Kurdish parties.

He said that 14 peshmerga fighters were killed, a toll confirmed by a senior officer in the Kurdish force.

Another two peshmerga died in fighting around a nearby border crossing with Syria.

The PUK official said the peshmerga killed “around 100” IS fighters and captured 38.

Published in Dawn, August 3rd, 2014