The Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq says its paramilitary forces, backed by U.S.-backed coalition airstrikes, have launched an operation to recapture the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar from the Islamic State group.
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The statement said the action was also aimed at creating “a significant buffer zone to protect the city and its inhabitants from incoming artillery”.
Peshmerga fighters and the militants exchanged heavy gunfire in the early hours Thursday as Kurdish fighters began their approach amid heavy aerial bombardment. “Airstrikes have been very important to the operation getting to the point where it is now”, said Maj. Gen. Seme Busal, commander of one of the front lines.
Peshmerga fighters are seeking to cut off one of the savage regime’s most active supply lines, Highway 47, which passes by Sinjar. ISIL is an acronym for the Islamic State.
“Once they get into this town, it’s going to be really slow going”, said retired Lt. Col. Rick Francona, another CNN military analyst.
Now, a few 5,000 Yazidi fighters have been mobilized under the command of the Kurdish Peshmerga to take the battle to ISIS.
“Coalition warplanes will provide close air support to pesh merga forces throughout the operation”, the statement said.
The group, which is Kurdish but whose faith is linked to ancient Mesopotamian religions, suffered intense persecution at the hands of IS, who regard Yezidis as heretics. The crisis prompted the U.S.to launch air drops of aid to the stranded, and then on August 8, it launched the first round of airstrikes in what would mark the beginning of a broader coalition effort to battle the militant group in Iraq and Syria.
IS overran the Sinjar area in August 2014, targeting members of the Yazidi religious minority in a brutal campaign of killings, enslavement and rape described the by United Nations as a possible genocide.
With support from worldwide strikes, Kurdish forces have managed to regain significant ground from IS, and have been positioned on Mount Sinjar at the edge of town for months.
Peshmerga forces from Iraq’s Kurdish region seized control of the governor’s office of Sinjar district Thursday in an extensive military operation against ISIL, according to the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
But it is not just the jihadist fighters they will have to contend with: IS has had more than a year to build up networks of bombs, berms and other obstacles in Sinjar.
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The Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) trained a Yazidi militia within Sinjar, and several thousand Yazidi outside of the city have joined the peshmerga. Iraqi Kurdish fighters have also held positions further outside the town.
