RIGHT SPEAK: With U.S. Help, the Kurds Push Back ISIS in a Fiery Battle

It began before dawn: One thousand troops taking up position.

The goal? Push ISIS fighters back toward Mosul and farther from Irbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdish region.

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ISIS had already destroyed a bridge linking the two cities a month ago, hoping to prevent any opposing force from advancing on Mosul -- the country's second largest city.

But the Kurdish fighting force, known as the Peshmerga, found another way, taking a long route around, traveling on dirt roads through mountainous areas -- first north, then west, then back south, past the bridge.

They stopped near villages seized by ISIS, which refers to itself as the Islamic State. Most people had fled or been forced out of the area, the Peshmerga told CNN.

Only fighters for the terrorist group and its sympathizers remained. ISIS, also known as ISIL, has seized large swaths of land as part of its effort to create a caliphate -- an Islamic state -- that stretches from western Syria to eastern Iraq.

Once the Kurdish forces were in place, the firing began -- a series of loud explosions of mortar and artillery, says CNN producer John Fiegener, who along with CNN correspondent Anna Coren embedded with the Peshmerga.

"Then you hear the aerial bombs, and those are bigger. Then you hear the small arms -- the machine guns." That sound indicates the Peshmerga forces have reached the areas where ISIS fighters are holed up, he said.