Kurdish forces partially recaptured Iraq’s largest dam yesterday, two weeks after it was overrun by fighters from the self-declared Islamic State (Isis).

Peshmerga fighters launched the operation after a series of US air strikes.

As the Star went to press, the Kurds had recaptured three nearby towns and were in control of the eastern part of the dam.

“They are advancing slowly. The obstacles are the roadside bombs,” said a peshmerga commander.

“They have reached inside the dam. There is no fighting, just the bombs, and the abandoned buildings are all rigged with explosives,” he said. “We will continue to advance and advance until we are given further instruction.”

He said the peshmerga are now waiting for Iraqi military mechanised bomb-disposal units. He said some of the explosives had been placed in abandoned buildings by Iraqi troops in an earlier bid to stall the militants’ advance.

On Saturday, the US Central Command said nine airstrikes had been launched near the dam, destroying armoured vehicles.

Syrian government forces also battered Isis militants yesterday.

Government troops have increasingly targeted Isis after the group overran large swathes of territory in northern Iraq, looting US-supplied weapons from the retreating Iraqi army.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that at least 31 militants were killed by yesterday’s air strikes and 40 injured, with 22 civilian casualties though no breakdown of the dead and wounded.

The Local Co-ordination Committee collective said earlier in the day that 11 had died in the Raqqa air strikes.