Iraqi and Kurdish forces, backed by American air strikes (see embedded video below) have driven Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) forces from the Mosul dam according to news reports today.

Reuters reported that an Iraqi television station had announced the news:

The television station quoted Lieutenant-General Qasim Atta, a military spokesman, as saying the forces were backed by a joint air patrol. He did not give details. An independent verification was not immediately possible.

A Twitter account belonging to a media organization that supports the Islamic State said the dam was still under the group’s full control.

The New York Times provided more details:

But as of midday, no photographs or videos had been released showing the security forces inside the dam, and the Kurdish military was preventing journalists from approaching the area and keeping residents from returning to their homes in villages nearby.

A commander for the Kurdish pesh merga forces in the area, Gen. Omer Ibrahim, said that ISIS fighters had abandoned the dam complex and retreated to a nearby front. But the complex itself was heavily mined, meaning the pesh merga could not fully enter it and prolonging the push to fully occupy the dam.

ISIS captured the dam last week raising fears that it could blackmail the Iraqi government with threats to destroy the dam and flood large areas of Iraq.

[Photo: United States Army Corps of Engineers / WikiCommons ]