The US military confirmed it conducted nine airstrikes Saturday near Arbil and Iraq’s largest dam in an effort to help Kurdish forces retake it from violent extremists.

The US military confirmed it conducted nine airstrikes Saturday near Arbil and Iraq's largest dam in an effort to help Kurdish forces retake it from violent extremists.

US Central Command said fighter jets and drones had destroyed or damaged four armored personnel carriers, seven armed vehicles, two Humvees and an armored vehicle.

Kurdish forces attacked ISIL fighters who wrested the Mosul dam from them a week earlier, a general told AFP.

"Kurdish peshmerga, with US air support, have seized control of the eastern side of the dam" complex, Major General Abdulrahman Korini told AFP, saying several militants had been killed.

The peshmerga fighters have tried to claw back the ground they lost since the start of August.

The dam on the Tigris provides electricity to much of the region and is crucial to irrigation in vast farming areas in Nineveh province.

The recapture of Mosul dam would be one of the most significant achievements in a fightback that is also getting international material support.

The strikes took place just a day after ISIL militants carried out a "massacre" of dozens of villagers.