Airstrikes by the U.S., along with humanitarian aid drops by Australia, France, Britain and the U.S., were credited with aiding the liberation of an Iraqi town from Islamic State forces Sunday, NBC reports.

But residents told Al-Alam that suffering through the August heat with no electricity or running water was still a hard situation to endure.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the Shiite Turkmen-an ethinic minority in Iraq- struggled with famine, thirst and diseases such as diarrhoea during the standoff with IS, formerly ISIS.

After two months of being under the control of the IS, and being cut off from food and water, the Shia town of Amerli was liberated by Iraqi security forces and Shiite militiamen, NBC reported.

"Amirli is liberated by the joint Iraqi forces," Hakim Al-Zamili, a Sadrist member of Parliament, told NBC. "ISIS militants escaped from Amerli and the areas around."

Iraqi Army spokesman Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, said in a news conference that operations to free neighboring villages under IS control were still under way, according to Al-Alam.

About 15,000 Shia Turkmen were stranded in the farming community, which is north of Baghdad, and did not abandon their town like other Iraqi's when the IS militants threatened.

Instead, the community banded together to create a unified front to bar the militants from advancing.

Residents fortified their town with trenches and armed positions, Al-Alam reported.

One resident, Nihad al-Bayati, said residents had fired into the air to celebrate the arrival of the Iraqi troops, and on TV the regular programming was interrupted to air patriotic songs.

But the battle against IS, which began with the seizure of Mosul on June 10, continues in Iraq, on what appears to be a path to the capital of Baghdad.

After Mosul, Tikrit fell but was later retaken by the Iraqi army, Press TV reports.