Supported by US-led airstrikes, Kurdish Iraqi troops on Thursday seized part of a highway that is used as a vital supply line by the Islamic State group, a key initial step in a major offensive to retake the strategic town of Sinjar from the militants.

The town was overrun by the extremists as they rampaged across Iraq in August 2014, leading to the killing, enslavement and flight of thousands of people from the minority Yazidi community. The US later launched an air campaign against the Islamic State militants, also known as ISIL, ISIS and, in Arabic, as Daesh.

Hours into Thursday's operation, the Kurdish Regional Security Council said its forces controlled a section of Highway 47, which passes by Sinjar and indirectly links the militants' two biggest strongholds '€” Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in northern Iraq '€” as a route for goods, weapons and fighters.

Coalition-backed Kurdish fighters on both sides of the border are trying to retake sections of that corridor as part of Operation Free Sinjar.

"By controlling Highway 47, which is used by Daesh to transport weapons, fighters, illicit oil and other commodities that fund their operations, the coalition intends to increase pressure ... and isolate their components from each other," a coalition statement said.

It said more than 150 square kilometers (95 miles) of territory had been retaken from the Islamic State group.

The coalition said 24 airstrikes were carried out over the past day, striking nine militant tactical units, nine staging areas and destroying 27 fighting positions, among other targets. Coalition aircraft have conducted more than 250 airstrikes in the past month across northern Iraq.

The Kurdish fighters also said they had secured the villages of Gabarra, on the western front, and Tel Shore, Fadhelya and Qen on the eastern front.

About 7,500 peshmerga fighters closed in on Sinjar from three sides, the Kurdish council said. In addition to taking the town and the highway, the operation aimed to establish "a significant buffer zone to protect the city and its inhabitants from incoming artillery."

Heavy gunfire broke out early Thursday as peshmerga fighters began their approach amid aerial bombardment.

US special operations forces were operating from a hill above the fighting in Sinjar, said Col. Steven Warren, the spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Baghdad. U.S. advisers were also positioned with Kurdish commanders, set back from the front line and behind Sinjar mountain, to remain away from the crossfire, Warren said.

According to US guidelines, the US forces have stay away from the front lines and the risk of enemy fire, he said, so they are operating from safe locations on Sinjar Mountain.

Warren said two teams of commandos were working with the Kurds to locate enemy targets and call the information in to the Joint Operations Center in Irbil, where military officials then direct coalition aircraft flying in the area to conduct the airstrikes.

This is only the second military operation in Iraq in which US special operations forces have moved closer to the front lines to help Kurdish forces identify targets and help direct airstrikes against the Islamic State. But while the strategy might be effective in northern Iraq, where the ethnic divisions are relatively clear, a similar use of commandos may not work in other parts of Iraq, such as Ramadi, where the battle lines are not as evident. (bbn)(+)

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