A total of 1,600 Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters have been killed since the start on October 17 of a huge offensive to retake the jihadist bastion of Mosul, a spokesman said Thursday.

Close to 10,000 peshmerga were also wounded in the six weeks of fierce fighting to oust the Islamic State group from Iraq's second city, said Halgord Hekmat, spokesman for the autonomous Kurdish region's peshmerga ministry.