ISIS booby traps huge dam as Pope backs US strikes

Kurdish Peshmerga forces stand guard near the town of Makhmur, south of Erbil, capital of Iraqi Kurdistan after Islamic State (IS) insurgents withdrew. Reuters

Ruth Sherlock

THE American-backed offensive to recapture Iraq's biggest dam stalled yesterday as fighters from the Islamic State rigged part of the area with booby traps and remotely triggered bombs.

Separately yesterday Pope Francis said that the United States and its allies are justified in trying to stop the Islamic State extremists, formerly known as Isis, and even suggested he could visit the country himself .