Kurds take 10 villages from Islamic State in north Iraq

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters walk with their weapons as smoke rises from the site of clashes, south of Daquq, north of Baghdad August 26, 2015

Kurdish forces backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes drove Islamic State militants out of 10 villages in Iraq's Kirkuk province on Wednesday in an offensive to secure their territory to the north, Kurdish military sources said.

The assault began at dawn in the Daquq area, around 175 kilometres (110 miles) north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. By evening, Kurdish forces had taken an area of around 250 square kilometres, the sources said.

An aide to a top Kurdish commander taking part in the offensive said five peshmerga had been killed, most of them by improvised explosive devices.

The frontline between Kurdish peshmerga forces and Islamic State in northern Iraq has hardly budged for months.

The Kurds already control most of the territory they claim as their own, and have little incentive to push further into predominantly Sunni Muslim Arab towns and villages, except where they pose a direct threat to their region.

"This area (near Daquq) posed a danger to the main road from Kirkuk to Baghdad and the Kurdish and other villages adjacent to the areas occupied by Daesh," Brigadier General Aras Abdel Rahman said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

The peshmerga have emerged as an important ally for the United States in its aerial campaign against Islamic State. Together they have pushed back the Sunni insurgents in northern Iraq, and the peshmerga has thus expanded the territory of its autonomous region.

Last summer, the Kurds took full control of the disputed city of Kirkuk after the Iraqi army abandoned its bases there, but western parts of the province such as Hawija remain under Islamic State control.

The Kurds have since carried out several offensives aimed at creating a buffer around the oil-rich city, which they say they will never relinquish.

Pakistan delegation heads to Saudi Arabia after Yemen request

Pakistan's government said Thursday it will dispatch a top civil-military delegation to Saudi Arabia following Riyadh's request that it join a coalition to defend Yemen's president, promising a "strong response" to any threat to the Gulf kingdom.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif decided to send the group to Saudi Arabia on Friday after meeting with top defence and military officials in Islamabad late Thursday, his office said in a statement.

"The meeting concluded that any threat to Saudi Arabia's territorial integrity would evoke a strong response from Pakistan," he said, adding that Pakistan's defence minister and Sharif's national security advisor would travel to the country, along with top military figures.

Sharif told the meeting that "Pakistan enjoys close and brotherly relations with Saudi Arabia and other GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries and attaches great importance to their security."

The Gulf kingdom has begun air strikes against Shia Houthi rebels and the Saudi ambassador in Washington said a coalition of 10 countries, including Pakistan, was being formed to protect the Yemeni government.

The rebels and their allies had been closing in on main southern city Aden, where President Abd-rabbo Mansour Hadi has been holed up since fleeing the rebel-controlled capital Sanaa last month.

Their advance raised Saudi fears that the Shia minority rebels would seize control of the whole of its Sunni-majority neighbour and take it into the orbit of Shia Iran.

Yemen is teetering on the brink of civil war as turmoil has grown since Houthis launched a power grab in February.

Islamabad has longstanding close ties to Saudi Arabia, and foreign office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said the kingdom had asked Pakistan to join the coalition.

"I can confirm we have been contacted by Saudi Arabia in this regard. The matter is being examined. That's all I have to say at the moment," she told a regular press briefing.

Aslam said no decision had been taken yet on whether to close the Pakistani embassy in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa.

The official Saudi Press Agency said earlier that Pakistan, along with Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Sudan, had all "expressed desire to participate in the operation".

Egypt and Jordan have confirmed they will join Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in the coalition.

However, joining the coalition might irk Pakistan's minority Shia community and neighbour Iran.

Pakistan has suffered a rising tide of sectarian violence in recent years, most of it perpetrated by hardline Sunni Muslim groups against minority Shia Muslims, who make up around one in five of the population.