ANKARA, August 06.6 /ITAR-TASS/. Paramilitary Iraqi Kurd units fighting in the city of Rabia near the border with Syria have killed 30 militants of Islamic State grouping.

Syrian Kurdish people’s self-defense units and fighters from Kurdistan Workers’ Party are also participating in clashes, Kurdish news agency Firat reported on Wednesday.

Along with Islamic State militants, a tank and several vehicles were destroyed in Rabia where clashes with Islamist militants had been going on already for the fourth day, the command of people’s self-defense forces said. Kurdish formations did not suffer any losses, several extremists were captured. The border city of Rabia is an important Kurdish strategic stronghold situated north of Iraqi highland region Sinjar (Shengal) and 100 kilometres west of the city of Mosul.

Peshmerga which are paramilitary Iraqi Kurdistan’s self-defense units want to fight back Sinjar from Islamic State militants. Syrian Kurdish people’s self-defense forces have already entered this region from Syria, local units of militia were formed in the very city of Sinjar. Sporadic clashes are flaring up between Kurds and Islamists there. Only Islamist militants suffered losses in the region, but this grouping is bringing armoured combat vehicles and heavy weapons from Mosul in the area of hostilities.

Meanwhile, Kurdistan Workers’ Party fighters are heading to Sinjar from northern Iraqi region of Qandil to back Kurds. Chief of the executive committee from the Union of Kurdistan Communities, Kurdistan Workers’ Party political wing, Murat Karayilan said that hundreds of Kurdish party’s fighters were being transferred from regions bordering Turkey and Iran.

At the start of this week Iraqi Kurdistan’s leadership ordered peshmerga to attack the positions of Islamic State militants which were controlling a larger part of Iraq.