With 7,500 ground troops and air support from the U.S.-led coalition, the offensive is the largest coordinated operation so far to seize ground from the extremist Sunni group. The 120 kilometer (75 mile) -long highway has been one of the most active supply lines for IS, a major conduit for goods, weapons and fighters.
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The KRSC said Kurdish forces reached the key Highway 47, which passes by Sinjar, linking the ISIL strongholds of Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in northern Iraq, cutting off access to Syria and preventing ISIL from making reinforcements.
Retaking Sinjar – where the IS carried out a brutal campaign of killings, enslavement and rape against the Yazidi religious minority – would also be an important symbolic victory.
Since then, and with extensive support from the United States air force and its allies, the Peshmerga has retaken much of the area north-east of Sinjar that was controlled by Isis, including the strategically vital Mosul Dam.
The Sinjar offensive coincides with an offensive by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in Syria to retake IS-held areas in the southern parts of Hassakeh province, across the border from the Sinjar region.
Lying close to the Syrian border in northern Iraq, the town was overrun by the militant group more than a year ago, triggering US-led air strikes in the region.
The town of Sinjar sits on the southern face of Mount Sinjar, which was the focus of a humanitarian crisis in August 2014 when thousands of ethnic Yazidis fled up the mountain to escape what they saw as certain death at the hands of ISIS fighters.
Hussein Derbo, the head of a peshmerga battalion made up of 440 Yazidis, said the men under his command could have migrated to Europe, but chose to stay and fight.
“The attack began at 7am, and the [Kurdish] Peshmerga forces advanced on several axes to liberate the center of the Sinjar district”, Major General Ezzeddine Saadun said.
“It is our land and our honour”.
The Turkish government has announced plans to send a few 10,700 military personnel to Syria in mid-December to fight Islamic State, the pro-government Yeni Safak daily reported.
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He said the Kurdish fighters appeared optimistic they would take back Sinjar. As the Peshmerga fighters moved into the city via trucks and fighting vehicles this morning, a small American unit was seen atop a nearby hill calling in and confirming airstrikes. The persecution of Yazidis prompted the U.S to reenter Iraq for the first time since it withdrew troops 2011, in a successful military campaign to rescue Yazidis trapped on the city’s mountain. The peshmerga’s main objective has been to take control of Highway 47.
