The coordinated attack in Iraq’s northwestern corner appears to be part of a more assertive approach by the Obama administration against Islamic State. It was also possible that they could be biding their time before striking back.
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Kurdish “peshmerga units successfully established blocking positions along Highway 47 and began clearing Sinjar”, the US-led coalition against Daseh said in a statement, referring to the main route linking the jihadists’ Iraqi hub of Mosul to Syria.
The town has been under the control of the Islamic State group for more than a year. “Revenge has been taken for them”.
“No one was fighting back”.
Gunfire fell silent as peshmerga fighters marched into the town.
He described the situation in the city as still unsafe, however, and warned it was too soon to declare victory.
The Pentagon says USA forces have conducted an airstrike in Syria targeting the British man known as “Jihadi John” who participated in the beheading videos of two American journalists and the slayings of several other captives.
The air attacks make up one of the heaviest air offensives since the United States entered the war against ISIS past year.
There is reason for officials’ caution.
The town, located at the foot of Mount Sinjar about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the Syrian border, is not an easy target. The militants have been reinforcing their ranks in Sinjar recently in expectation of an assault, although the coalition was not able to give specifics on the size of the IS forces.
The USA aided the Yazidis with humanitarian airdrops and anti-ISIS airstrikes, which eventually morphed into the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition we have today. Washington launched an air offensive in Iraq and neighbouring Syria last summer after Islamic State’s killing and enslaving of thousands of Sinjar’s Yazidi residents focused global attention on the group’s violent campaign to impose its ideology.
The militant advance in 2014 triggered the flight of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, mainly minorities, including Christians, Shiite Muslims and Yazidis, followers of an ancient faith linked to pre-Islamic Mesopotamian creeds.
The loss earlier this year of Ramadi, widely seen as a test of whether the Iraqi military would be ready to attempt to reclaim Islamic State’s much larger stronghold of Mosul, marked a major setback to the government’s offensive against the militants.
By Thursday afternoon, the Kurdish fighters pushing toward Sinjar had taken control of a number of villages near the Iraqi town.
Peshmerga forces also penetrated Sinjar, joining other fighters noisily cocking their rifles and patrolling its rubble-covered streets.
“However, the Kurdish forces have advanced on ground after engineering teams removed and dismantled the landmines”, he added.
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“Denying ISIL the use of Highway 47 disrupts their ability to move fighters, supplies and oil destined for the black market”, the worldwide Coalition for Operation Inherent Resolve said on Twitter.
