KOBAN, IRAQ—Iraqi Kurdish forces battling Islamic State militants managed on Thursday to open up a key corridor so that thousands of people from the country’s Yazidi minority who have been trapped on a mountain can flee, said a senior Kurdish official.

The development was an incremental step in the battle to retake the town of Sinjar, at the foothills of the mountain by the same name, which fell to the Islamic State group in early August.

The Kurdish peshmerga troops, backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, launched the operation to retake Sinjar on Wednesday.

Masrur Barzani, chancellor of Kurdistan Region Security Council, said the Kurdish forces advanced in battle, establishing the passageway to the mountain on Thursday. He emphasized that Iraqi forces were in no way part of the operation.

“We asked the Iraqi government to provide the ammunition needed for this operation. Unfortunately they did not send the ammunition and their contribution was nothing, to be quite frank with you, especially for this operation,” Barzani told The Associated Press in Dohuk, in Iraq’s Kurdish region.

Tens of thousands of Yazidis became trapped on the mountain in early August, when Islamic State extremists captured the towns of Sinjar and Zumar, prompting the exodus.

Many were eventually airlifted off the mountain or escorted by a passageway through Syria back into Iraq, where they found refuge in the Iraqi Kurdish semi-autonomous region. But thousands remained stuck on the mountain.

“A corridor has been opened to evacuate those people,” Barzani said.

Yazidis follow an ancient religion with ties to Zoroastrianism.

Meanwhile, two senior Islamic State group leaders were killed in U.S. and coalition airstrikes in northern Iraq over the last week, U.S. officials said Thursday, as Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel approved new orders for several hundred troops to deploy to Iraq to train Iraqi forces.

According to one of the U.S. officials, airstrikes killed a key deputy of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State militants, and one of al-Baghdadi’s military chiefs. A third militant, described as a mid-level leader, was also killed.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the identification details publicly.

Words of the deaths came after Hagel signed orders Wednesday for the first group of U.S. troops to go to Iraq as part of the administration’s recent decision to deploy 1,500 more American forces to the country. The troops are to advise and train Iraqi forces.

The top U.S. commander for the mission in Iraq and Syria said Thursday the next wave of American troops will begin moving into Iraq in a couple of weeks, and cautioned that it will take at least three years to build the capabilities of the Iraqi military.

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The Iraqi army wants to launch a counteroffensive to retake Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, and the U.S. probably would help. While there have been some concerns that Iraq’s military may not be ready yet for such an ambitious operation, Hagel said last week that the U.S. is working with senior Iraqi leaders on preparations.

Army Lt. Gen. James Terry, who is leading the U.S. campaign, declined to say when a Mosul operation might be launched. There have been fewer details and more limited media access to U.S. military operations in Iraq this time than during the eight years of war that ended in 2011.

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