The women being trained to fight ISIS: Elite Kurdish unit prepare to take on the imminent threat of Islamic militants in Iraq



Elite female unit of Kurdish Peshmerga preparing to protect land from Islamic militants

Led by commander Nahida Ahmad Rashid, the unit is training in Kurdish region of Sulaimaniyah, in northern Iraq

Iraqi army ret ook Saddam Hussein's home village overnight, a symbolic victory in its struggle to seize back swathes of the country from insurgents

More than 40 Indian nurses who were trapped for more than a week at a hospital in Tikrit meanwhile, are safe and will fly home this week

This is the elite female unit of the Kurdish Peshmerga who are currently undergoing training as they prepare to protect their land from the threat of Islamic militants.

Led by commander Nahida Ahmad Rashid, the unit is taking part in military training in the Kurdish region of Sulaimaniyah, in northern Iraq.

The unit was set up to help fight loyalists of former president Saddam Hussein and has also battled against al Qaeda fighters, according to Sky News.



The elite female unit of the Kurdish Peshmerga train as they prepare to protect their land from the threat of Islamic militants

Kurdish women living in northern Iraq are training to be Peshmerga, as the self-ruled Kurdish region's militia is known, to fight against the threat of Islamic militants

The elite unit is undergoing training in the Kurdish region of Sulaimaniyah, in northern Iraq

It is now however preparing for a new battle against Islamic militants, if they are required to do so.

Elsewhere, the Iraqi army retook Saddam Hussein's home village overnight, a symbolic victory in its struggle to seize back swathes of the country from insurgents.

Backed by helicopter gunships and helped by volunteers, the army recaptured the village of Awja in an hour-long battle on Thursday night, according to state media, police and local inhabitants.

Awja lies five miles south of Tikrit, a city that remains in rebel hands since Islamic State, formerly the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), launched an assault across northern Iraq last month.

The fight to retake Tikrit began on June 28, but the army has still failed to retake the city which fell after the police and army imploded last month in the face of the militant onslaught that also captured Mosul and other major Sunni areas.

The military spokesman of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Awja had been 'totally cleansed' and 30 militants killed, according to state television.



The unit is led by commander Nahida Ahmid Rashid, who started the unit to help fight former president Saddam Hussein

The self-rule Kurdish region's militia, known as Peshmerga, has seized territory in recent weeks amid the chaos of the Sunni insurgent blitz across northern and western Iraq

The unit is said to be training to fight against Islamic militants and protect its land

A police source told Reuters three insurgents had been killed.



Spokesman Qassim Atta said security forces had seized control of several government buildings, including a water treatment plant, but security sources and residents said militants were still holding Iraqi forces from entering Tikrit.

Elsewhere, Iraqi government airstrikes targeted Islamic militants trying to capture the country's largest oil refinery, reportedly killing as many as 30 insurgents, authorities said.

Fighters from the Islamic State group have been trying for weeks to capture the Beiji facility, located some 155 miles north of Baghdad. The group appeared on the verge of taking the refinery last month, but military troops managed to hold on and have since received reinforcements to help bolster their defenses.

A government plane targeted around eight vehicles attacking government forces at the facility north of Baghdad on Friday morning, said Sabah al-Nuaman, the spokesman for Iraq's counter-terrorism services. He said up to 30 militants were killed.

Iraqi security forces and armed volunteers move with military vehicles during clashes with militants of the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, in the town of Dalli Abbas in Diyala province

The Iraqi army retook Saddam Hussein's home village overnight, a symbolic victory in its struggle to seize back swathes of the country from insurgents. Pictured are Iraqi security forces and armed volunteers in the town of Dalli Abbas in Diyala province

Al-Nuaman also said a helicopter gunship hit a house in the town of Qaim near the Syrian border where a gathering of the Islamic State group's local leaders was taking place. He said there were several casualties, but did not have a concrete figure.

INDIAN NURSES STRANDED IN TIKRIT HOSPITAL SET TO FLY HOME

More than 40 Indian nurses who were trapped in territory captured by Islamic militants crossed into Iraq's largely autonomous Kurdish region today and will be under the protection of local security forces until flying home later in the day, authorities said.

The nurses had been stranded for more than a week at a hospital in the Iraqi city of Tikrit, which Sunni militants, including fighters from the Islamic State extremist group, captured last month.

Officials say the nurses were moved this week to the militant-held city of Mosul farther north.

Nawaz Hadi, the governor of Irbil province in the self-rule Kurdish region, said the nurses arrived at a checkpoint and were being cared for by the Kurdish militia fighters.

'All the nurses are safe with the Peshmerga in Irbil,' Hadi told The Associated Press.

'After this, they will travel to the airport in Irbil and return home. They are very tired.'

It remained unclear whether the nurses had been held by the extremist group or were just stranded in their territory.

The militants took control of Qaim, which controls a border crossing with Syria, last month during their blitz across Iraq, and now control a vast stretch of territory straddling the two countries.

The army said it now held the 30 mile stretch of highway running north from the city of Samarra - which is 60 miles north of Baghdad - to Awja.

But the mainly Sunni communities along this corridor remain hostile towards government forces and army convoys continue to come under guerrilla attack.

The onslaught by Islamic State, an al Qaeda splinter group that has declared a medieval-style Islamic caliphate erasing the borders of Iraq and Syria, and threatened to march on Baghdad, has left the Shi'ite-led government in disarray.

Parliament was unable this week to pick a new government to unite the divided country.

The most senior Shi'ite cleric on Friday described it as a 'regrettable failure'.

Islamic militants seized an eastern Syrian oil field near Iraq and inched closer to the Turkish border today as they try to consolidate their control of an area along the length of the Euphrates river stretching through Syria and Iraq.



The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that fighters from the Islamic State group seized the al-Tanak oil field early Friday. Another group, the activist collective of Deir el-Zour, also reported the seizure.



The field is in the eastern Syrian province of Deir el-Zour, near Iraq, and it followed the Islamic State group's seizure of Syria's largest oil field on Thursday.



Both oil fields were taken from other rebel groups.



Kurdish Peshmerga troops stand during an intensive security deployment after clashes with militants of the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, in Jalawla

The army said it now held the 30 mile stretch of highway running north from the city of Samarra - which is 60 miles north of Baghdad - to Awja. Pictured are Peshmerga troops in Jalawla

The extremist Sunni Muslim group now has nearly full control over a corridor from the Syrian provincial capital of Deir el-Zour to the border town of Boukamal. The area neighbors parts of northern and western Iraq that it seized last month, allowing the group to flow freely between the two countries.



Over the past three days, the Islamic State fighters have been pushing strongly northwards up the Euphrates river toward Turkey, shelling a town just 11 miles from the border, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory. A local activist, who uses the name Ahmed al-Ahmed, also confirmed the information, Associated Press has reported.

