Canadian warplanes tried to blunt ISIL attack

Kurdish official Hemin Hawrami said on Twitter that Kurdish peshmerga forces had repelled multiple attacks on Wednesday by the militants, who deployed nine auto bombs and eight suicide attacks. "This was an attempt by ISIL to breach peshmerga defensive lines following significant losses in recent months", read the statement.

"Four Turkish troops were wounded in a mortar attack against the military training camp near Mosul", the official said.

The Turkish soldiers were slightly injured in the attack before they responded with howitzer fire, Turkey's general staff said in a statement, highlighting the importance of the security at the base.

Ankara insists the deployment was routine and necessary to protect the Turkish military trainers, while Baghdad said it was unauthorised and demanded the troops be withdrawn, protesting to members of the UN Security Council.

Baghdad says the Turkish military presence is a violation of its sovereignty.

Turkey must pull all its forces out of a camp in northern Iraq, a spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister said on December 15 after Ankara withdrew some troops from the area.

Islamic State militants fired rockets on Wednesday at a base in northern Iraq where Turkish troops are stationed, and Turkish forces returned fire, Kurdish military sources and Turkish officials told Reuters.

It said that some Katyusha ÇNRA projectiles fell into the camp in the Bashiqa region during the clashes between ISIL and Peshmerga forces at around 3 p.m. The Shiite majority in Iraq sees the Turks as being in collaboration with ISIS which is comprised of Sunni Muslims. Thousands of Shiite militiamen and supporters have joined rallies demanding Turkey's full withdrawal, chanting, "No to occupation".

In a bid to placate Baghdad, an unspecified contingent of the Turkish troops this week pulled out of the camp and headed northwards.

Even while urging North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally Turkey to tread lightly in Iraq, the US has been pressing Turkey to step up its involvement in the U.S.-led coalition fighting IS. A key United States priority is for Turkey to finally close a stretch of its border with Syria that ISIL controls on the Syrian side, denying the extremist group a crucial corridor for funneling foreign fighters into Syria.