On a hillside in northern Kurdistan, peshmerga soldiers load bullets into magazines. A Dutch commander from the coalition forces watches as the peshmerga perform drills — from combat medical procedures and urban warfare training to live fire field exercises.

While the bombardment by US and allied forces have helped the Iraqi and Kurdish forces regain territory controlled by the Islamic State (IS), ground support is needed to gain control of territories such as Mosul, Salahuddin, Anbar and Diyala. In an effort to scale up the offensive, the peshmerga are receiving rigorous training from coalition military advisers. Troops from the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy have devoted four weeks to training and advising a special platoon of the peshmerga fighters.

Sending in a unit of peshmerga forces into one of Iraq's chaotic cities invaded by IS requires precision and strategy, as well as field skills appropriate to the urban terrain. Obstacles such as narrow streets, snipers hiding in buildings and low-hanging power lines contribute to the difficulty of fighting in an urban environment. Forty peshmerga recruits received intensive training to improve their responses in urban terrain.

Michael Knights, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Al-Monitor that urban warfare is relatively new for the peshmerga, saying, “They're typically mountain fighters who control vehicle checkpoints, but now they are faced with a greater offensive operation that combines artillery, motorized infantry and air power.”