Kurdish, Iraqi leaders claim gains against Islamic State

Ammar Al Shamary and John Dyer | Special for USA TODAY

SALAHUDDIN PROVINCE, Iraq — Kurdish peshmerga forces on Sunday claimed to be driving Islamic State fighters from the southern regions of Iraq's Kirkuk province and away from valuable oilfields, military officials said.

Peshmerga commanders told the Kurdish media network Rudaw that their forces were within 12 miles of Hawija, just south of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. They said they had deployed heavy weapons and troops in the area.

Last week, Kurdish forces backed by coalition airstrikes launched a campaign that also helped clear ISIL from large tracts of territory near Kirkuk's oilfields.

ISIL militants have been fleeing north to Hawija from Tikrit, where the Iraqi Army has been conducting a joint offensive with Iranian-backed Shiite militias for two weeks.

Iraqi officers on Saturday claimed that in Tikrit a dwindling band of Islamic State extremists were in "total collapse." Iraqi government leaders predicted ISIL fighters would be driven from Tikrit within a few days.

Most of Tikrit's 260,000 residents have fled, but some 30,000 remain trapped in the city with scores of ISIL militants, Iraqi officials say.

The situation is becoming increasingly desperate for the Islamic State, said Iraqi army Maj. Mohammed Ali. The Islamist militants blew up all the mobile phone towers in the city in recent days as the noose tightened around their position.

"They realized that residents were giving us information about their movements," he said. "We still can listen to their internal communications, and we know how weak they are at this moment. They are in total collapse."

Farther to the north, however, ISIL continues to rule the city of Mosul and its 1 million people with an iron grip. The cities are all key to the Islamic State effort to build and maintain is Islamic caliphate across much of Iraq and a swath of northern Syria.

Contributing: John Bacon in McLean, Va.