As the clashes in northern Iraq intensify, an Anadolu Agency team witnessed an exchange of fire between Kurdish security forces and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - ISIL.
The Kurdish forces, known as Peshmerga, came under attack while an AA team was interviewing the Kurdish commander in Makhmur town near Mosul, which was captured by ISIL militants in June.
A mortar, fired by ISIL rebels, exploded nearby to where Peshmerga fıghters were sheltering against the militants' advance. The Peshmerga responded quickly in the short engagement.
The commander, Mohamed Yousuf, told the AA that his forces were in a defensive position to protect the Kurdish population in the town from ISIL assaults.
Fighting near the Syrian border between Kurdish and ISIL forces heated up last week when ISIL-led militants seized control of several towns in the area and began to threaten the country's largest hydroelectric facility, known as the Mosul Dam.
www.aa.com.tr/en
