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Kurdish fighters seized a strategic ISIS stronghold in Syria Friday in a move that could impede jihadi movements near the border with Iraq, where they also control large swaths of territory, The Daily Star reported.

Meanwhile, the United States and Turkey are to begin training and equipping moderate Syrian rebels for the fight against President Bashar Assad and ISIS.

The main Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) said its fighters had liberated Tal Hamis and surrounding communities at the request of residents “who wanted to get rid of these terrorists and mercenaries.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said “the jihadis retreated without much resistance after Kurdish forces, backed by Arab fighters, returned to Tal Hamis.”

The Kurds now occupy a strip of land linking the Hassakeh provincial town, which has been under ISIS control for more than a year, with the Iraqi border.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said it was “one of the most important strongholds” of the group in the region.