Kurdish troops launched offensives against the so-called ’Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ (ISIL) terrorist group on three fronts in northern Iraq on Tuesday, senior officers told media outlets.

Kurdish troops launched offensives against the so-called 'Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant' (ISIL) terrorist group on three fronts in northern Iraq on Tuesday, senior officers told media outlets.

Troops struck before dawn north of terrorists-controlled city Mosul, against a town on the Syrian border and south of key oil hub Kirkuk, the commanders said.

A senior source in the Kurdish peshmerga said troops had entered the town of Rabia on the border with Syria, after seizing the villages of As-Saudiyah and Mahmudiyah.

"Ground troops are now fighting in the centre of Rabia," he added, which lies about 100 kilometres (60 miles) northwest of Mosul.

He said peshmerga forces, backed by artillery and warplanes, were also attacking Zumar, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of the city, near the reservoir of Iraq's largest dam, which has been a key battleground between the Kurds and the terrorists.

Both Rabia and Zumar were areas which the peshmerga seized in the chaos that followed the ISIL's capture of Mosul in the offensive in early June.