(reuters) -- The areas were evacuated by the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters before the arrival of the Iraqi forces. The Peshmerga had taken them between over the past three years, a part of the war on Isis militants.
The Mosul Dam, north west of the city, is among the positions retaken from the Peshmerga, the military statement said.
(Photo: The Mosul Dam, the largest in Iraq, holds back billions of cubic metres of water)