Kurdish fighters said they had taken the town of Bashiqa near Mosul from Islamic State on Sunday as coalition forces pressed their offensive against the jihadists' last stronghold in Iraq.



A U.S. official said Masoud Barzani, President of the Iraqi Kurdish Region, had informed U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter that the Kurds had succeeded in liberating Bashiqa from Islamic State.



Kurdish peshmerga fighters told reporters at the scene they had entered Bashiqa, but journalists were not being allowed into the town.