(File Photo: Reuters) Kurdish Peshmerga forces keep watch in a village east of Mosul, Iraq, May 29, 2016.
Iraq's Kurdish peshmerga forces say they have launched an operation aimed at retaking a cluster of villages from the Islamic Sate group east of militant-held Mosul.
Peshmerga Brig. Gen. Dedewan Khurshid Tofiq says Sunday that "Four villages have been liberated so far."
Footage filmed by Rudaw, a local television network, showed smoke rising from a village in the distance as armored vehicles pushed across a field.
The operation aims to begin to encircle Mosul before the full-scale offensive to retake the city. South of Mosul, Iraqi army forces are working to clear villages around a recently recaptured air base.
Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, has been held by IS group since 2014. It remains the last major urban stronghold of the militant group in Iraq.
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