Kurdish forces have begun an operation to force out militants with the Islamic State group from a strategic town in northern Iraq.
Officials said Kurdish peshmerga fighters early Friday retook several areas of Jalawla, 115 kilometers northeast of Baghdad.
The flashpoint town, which is just south of the Kurdish semi-autonomous region, was captured by Islamic State extremists on August 11.
On Thursday, U.S. Defense Department chief Chuck Hagel said the threat posed by Islamic State extremists to global security is "beyond anything we have seen."
Hagel, speaking in Washington, described the militants as "more than a traditional terrorist group." He said it is better armed, trained and bankrolled than any previous militancy.
Hagel spoke alongside Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey, who described the Islamic State organization as having "an apocalyptic, end of days vision."
The general said the group can be defeated, but only if it is engaged in Syria as well as Iraq. He predicted the militancy will only be eradicated once it is rejected by the 20 million disenfranchised people living in the vast regions between Damascus and Baghdad.
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