BAGHDAD, Iraq: Islamic State fighters in Iraq are battling to seize two of country’s largest dams as they seeks to consolidate control over the territory it took this year.

Fighting between the breakaway Al-Qaeda group and Kurdish security forces raged for a third day near the Mosul Dam, Iraq’s largest, Hisham Al-Brefkani, member of the Nineveh provincial council, said in a phone interview. About 350 kilometers (200 miles) to the south, Iraqi forces engaged militants in the farmland and villages near the Haditha dam, Khalid Al-Hadithi, a city council chairman, said in an interview.

The Islamic State, previously known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, has grabbed territory throughout Iraq and Syria and declared its own self-styled caliphate, highlighting the central government’s inability to ensure security under Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. Strengthened with weapons seized from the Iraqi army, the group this week seized two oil fields and predominantly Kurdish towns in the north, forcing thousands to flee their homes.

“The Kurdish military status has changed from a defensive one to an offensive one,” Al-Brefkani said.

Kurdish forces also launched a counterattack on Sinjar and Zummar, which were seized by militants during the past few days, he said.

In Sinjar, used during the filming of The Exorcist about 40 years ago, the fighting overnight went back and forth, with the majority of the district still under the control of the militants, Sheikh Ahmed Al-Obaidi, a resident of the nearby city of Rabia’ah, said in a phone interview from Mosul. “The Kurdish forces were be able to control the entrance to the city twice last night, and then they withdrew.”

The Mosul dam, about 50 kilometers northwest of the city that the militants captured in June, is a major supplier of electricity and water. Germany’s Hochtief AG helped build the dam on the Tigris River in the 1980s. If it collapsed or was sabotaged, it could flood Mosul and surrounding villages.

The Islamic State has enriched itself by seizing infrastructure and energy assets as its makes military gains in Iraq and Syria, where it is battling forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad as well as other opposition groups.

Its fighters are also attempting to seize the Haditha dam, on the Euphrates river in Anbar province northwest of Baghdad.

“They have intensified their attacks on Haditha town and the dam in the last four days,” Hameed Hashim, a member of the Anbar provincial council, said in a telephone interview. “Haditha dam is still under government forces’ control and there are military reinforcements around it.”

Islamic State fighters captured the town of Zummar and the Ain Zala and Batma oilfields, which together have an output of 30,000 barrels per day, in the past few days, according to the state-run Northern Oil Co.

The militant advance on Sinjar and other towns in the area displaced as many as 200,000 people, according to the UN Mission in Iraq. Most of the displaced are Yezidi, a Kurdish community whose faith includes features of the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism.

_ With assistance from Kadhim Ajrash in Baghdad and Zaid Sabah in Washington.

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