The offensive to retake Sinjar was restarted Thursday by the Kurdish militia fighters known as the peshmerga forces, and they succeeded in cutting a key highway nearby and retaking about 60 square miles of territory from the Islamic State extremist group.
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Iraqi Kurdish regional president Massoud Barzani announced yesterday that Sinjar had been seized by Kurdish forces.
Sinjar is a symbolic as well as strategic prize.
The Islamists’ systematic killing and enslaving of thousands of Sinjar’s Yazidi residents as they swept across northern Iraq last summer drew global outrage and prompted the United States to intensify its campaign against IS.
Volunteer Yazidi fighters, including men as old as 70, joined Kurdistan’s peshmerga and special forces, and Kurdish separatist fighters based in Syria in the offensive for a total of about 7,500 fighters.
Kerry said US officials were still assessing the strike that targeted the British-born Islamic State militant “Jihadi John”, butsaid it showed the group’s days were numbered.
“By seizing Sinjar, we’ll be able to cut that line of communication, which we believe will constrict (Isis’) ability to resupply themselves, and is a critical first step in the eventual liberation of Mosul”, said Warren, referring to the jihadists’ main hub in Iraq. US officials had initially given a time frame of up to two weeks for the battle.
“The odd thing about liberated Sinjar, is that there isn’t much to liberate”, says Ben Kesling, who’s there for the Wall Street Journal.
Sinjar, a Yazidi town that lies along Iraq’s border with Syria, fell into the hands of ISIS previous year.
“The liberation of Sinjar will have a big impact on liberating Mosul”, Mr Barzani, who personally oversaw the offensive, said atop Mount Sinjar, overlooking the town.
Officials with the US-led coalition estimated there were between 400 and 550 IS fighters inside Sinjar before the offensive began on Thursday.
“They didn’t take part in the fighting. And the only people in the town when I was there were Yezidi fighters who have taken back their home town”. But it was still not clear if most IS militants had carried out a tactical withdrawal.
CNN concedes that the fight for Sinjar is not over.
The Iraqi forces began “their advance to liberate Ramadi… from three directions: the west, the north and the south-west, supported by (the air force) who are now striking selected targets”, said a statement from joint operations command that was broadcast on state television.
Most Yazidis have been displaced to camps in the Kurdistan region; several thousand remain in Islamic State captivity.
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Michael Knights, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said: “The Barzani leadership of the (Kurdistan region) can show progress…at a time when they are under mounting domestic criticism from other coalition partners in the government”.
