“The militants launched the assault at 9:30 last night,” Peshmerga commander Hasim Sitai told Rudaw.Sitai said the Peshmerga did not suffer any casualties in the hour-long battle.

Sitai added that two prominent ISIS leaders, Abu Yaqub and Abu Omar, were killed along with several militants and some of the dead bodies were left behind.

“We are making a solid plan to re-launch an assault on the ISIS in Sinjar with the aim of driving them totally out of the area,” Sitai said.  

In Syria also Kurdish forces advance against ISIS in Syria, activists say.

Kurdish fighters had retaken a strategic town in north-eastern Syria from the ISIS and are pushing to drive out the militant group from the area, activists said on Saturday.

The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), backed by Assyrian Christians and US-led coalition warplanes, early Saturday took control of the town of Tal Hamis in the province of al-Hassakeh bordering Turkey and Iraq, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

Earlier this week, ISIS launched a wide-scale attack in the area and abducted more than local 350 Assyrian Christians whose fate is still unclear.

The Syrian troops on Friday recaptured a key town in the southern province of Daraa, moving closer to a key hilltop in that province, a well-informed source told Xinhua.

The Syrian government forces wrested back control over the village of Habariyeh, killing many fighters of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, the state news agency SANA said the Syrian troops on Friday eliminated the last remaining gatherings of the rebels in the town of Tal Majda in the countryside of the southern province of Swaida near the Jordanian borders.