BAGHDAD, Iraq
Eight Kurdish fighters and 20 ISIL militants were killed Friday in Iraq's Sinjar area, according to a source from the Peshmerga forces.
“Four Peshmerga fighters and four other Kurdish Syrian fighters were killed in clashes with ISIL militants,” the source told The Anadolu Agency.
Twenty Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants were also killed in the battle that took place in northwestern Sinjar, in the northern province of Nineweh.
The U.S-led international coalition's airstrikes targeted a number of ISIL areas during the clashes.
ISIL had been in control of Sinjar, located 77 miles west of Mosul. The group began its large-scale campaign that tore through Iraq there, an area that is home to many Ezidi Kurds.
Kurdish Peshmerga forces were able to defeat ISIL after three days of clashes and took control of Sinjar on Dec. 20.
Meanwhile, in Baghdad, three people were killed and 13 others were wounded in two explosions on Friday, according to a police source.
“Two people were killed and seven others were wounded in an IED explosion in the New Baghdad area in eastern Baghdad,” an Iraqi police captain said.
One person was killed and six others were injured in another IED explosion in the Swieb area in southwestern Baghdad, the same source added.
Iraq has been in a security vacuum since June, when ISIL stormed Mosul and declared what it called a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria.
The U.S. is leading an international coalition which has carried out numerous airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq and Syria.
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