Kurdish Peshmerga forces in northern Iraq say they’ve taken back most of Iraq’s largest dam at Mosul after ousting Islamic State (IS) militants.  They’re now clearing landmines and any other traps left behind by the retreating extremist fighters.

American warplanes and predator drones carried at least 14 air strikes on IS positions around the Mosul Dam to soften up Islamic State, support the Kurds, and to ease the humanitarian threat – it provides electricity and irrigation water for farming to much of the region.  IS took control of the dam on the Tigris river north of Iraq’s second-largest city on 7 August.  But that grip came to an end pretty quickly as Kurdish ground forces started moving in on Sunday morning.

Two months of violence brought Iraq to the precipice of break-up.  But there are flickers of unity, as Sunni Arab tribesmen and Iraqi security forces fought the militants west of Baghdad.  There was little cooperation between Sunni and Shiite while Nouri al-Maliki was Prime Minister, as he was accused of consolidating power among his Shiite allies.  He finally stepped down last week, and the Sunnis rejoined the fight against Islamic State within days.