Kurdish forces took over parts of Iraq’s largest dam yesterday less than two weeks after it was captured by the Islamic State extremist group, as US and Iraqi planes aided their advance by bombing militant targets near the facility.

Islamic extremists in Iraq killed 80 men from a Yazidi village and abducted their wives and children, eyewitnesses said today, insisting the religious community is still at risk after a week of US and Iraqi airstrikes on the militants.

Airstrikes pounded the area around Iraq’s largest dam today in an effort to drive out militants who captured it earlier this month, as reports emerged of the massacre of some 80 members of the Yazidi religious minority by Islamic extremists.

Iraq’s Mosul dam, held by the Islamic State group, is being targeted in airstrikes, residents there say.

Islamist militants surged across northern Iraq towards the capital of the Kurdish region yesterday, sending tens of thousands of Christians fleeing for their lives.

Sunni militants from the Islamic State group have seized Iraq’s largest dam, placing them in control of enormous power and water resources.