MAHMOUDIYAH, Iraq (AP) — The exhausted Kurdish fighters leaned against a pair of antiquated green cannons on a hill overlooking this northern Iraqi village, the ground around them littered with shrapnel from fierce battles with Islamic State militants.

One of them, Moustafa Saleh, tapped the cannon with his mud-caked boots. “Russian-made,” he said, with a smirk. “My grandfather used the same one.”