Kurdish Peshmerga forces have launched a fresh attack on Islamic State (IS) forces as part of a campaign to capture Mosul, the militants' de facto capital in Iraq, Kurdish officials say.
The advance began early on Sunday after heavy shelling and air strikes by a United States-led coalition against IS forces, a Reuters correspondent reported from Wardak, 30km southeast of Mosul.
The militants fought back, firing mortars at the advancing troops and detonating at least two car bombs.
A Peshmerga commander said a dozen villages had been taken from the ultra-hardline Sunni militants as Kurdish forces headed towards Gwer, the target of the operation, 40km southeast of Mosul.
Repairing a bridge that the militants destroyed in Gwer would allow the Peshmerga to open a new front around Mosul. The bridge crosses the Grand Zab river that flows into the Tigris.
IS said in a statement on its Amaq news service that two car bombs driven by suicide fighters were detonated in one of the villages to block advancing Kurdish forces, causing casualties among the Peshmerga.
Authorities in autonomous Kurdistan gave no toll for the fighting, other than confirming the death of a Kurdish TV cameraman and the injury of another journalist.
Clouds of black smoke rose from the scene of fighting and dozens of civilians fled in the direction of Peshmerga lines, brandishing white flags.
The Iraqi army and the Peshmerga forces of the Kurdish self-rule region are gradually taking up positions around Mosul, 400km north of the capital Baghdad.
Mosul is the largest urban centre under the militants' control, and had a pre-war population of nearly 2 million.
Its fall would mark the effective defeat of Islamic State in Iraq, according to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who has said he aims to retake the city this year.
The Peshmerga operation on Sunday was "one of many shaping operations that will also increase pressure on ISIL in and around Mosul," said an official from the Kurdistan Regional Security Council, using another acronym to refer to IS.
