Kurdish Iraqi fighters, backed by US-led coaltion war planes, have launched a major offensive to retake the strategic town of Sinjar in northern Iraq from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters.
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Major General Hashem Seetayi, another Peshmerga officer, said the ongoing operation is aimed at establishing “a significant buffer zone” to protect Sinjar and its inhabitants from incoming artillery, adding that coalition warplanes will provide close air support to Peshmerga forces throughout the operation.
Officials said around 7,500 Peshmerga forces are participating in the operation, with air support provided by the U.S.-led global coalition.
Sinjar, the focus of a major battle between Kurds and the Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) is critical both as a symbol and as a strategic point in the larger conflict with ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
When IS attacked Sinjar in 2014, the barbaric killing of thousands of Yazidi residents prompted the United States to launch air strikes against the group.
In a first step in coalition efforts to broaden action against Islamic State, US and coalition forces have air dropped food and water to those trapped on the mountain and bombed Islamic State positions to blunt their military advances. Islamic State recently moved additional fighters into Sinjar, where they now probably have about 700 members, according to the KRG.
CNN senior global correspondent Nick Paton Walsh is with one of the three fronts of fighters who launched their liberation operation early Thursday morning against a backdrop of airstrikes.
A counteroffensive by Kurdish forces in December retook part of the city, although since then little progress has been made.
The US military has not commented on the offensive but it comes as Washington expands its fight against militants in Syria and Iraq.
Spirits were high among Kurdish commanders and local officials near the front line.
For the Kurds Sinjar is part of their semi-autonomous “Kurdistan” in Iraq and as such they are eager to win it back and prove that they are deserving of their own nation. The ISIS fighters’ conquest of the town in August 2014 displaced tens of thousands of people, primarily from the Yezidi community.
“Peshmerga forces totally purged Tal al-Shor and Hajji Fadel villages [25 kilometers in eastern Sinjar] and found the bodies of seven Daesh militants”, Sherzad Zakholi, a peshmerga captain, said. An untold number were killed in last year’s assault, and hundreds of men and women were kidnapped.
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When Sinjar fell 18 months ago, the Yazidi minority religious group that lived there endured violent retaliatory attacks. Ultimately, hundreds of thousands of Yazidis fled, and many were raped, murdered or enslaved by ISIL.
