Kurds launch offensive to retake Sinjar, Iraq, from IS control

SINJAR, Iraq, Nov. 12 (UPI) — Kurdish forces in northern Iraq have launched an offensive to take the town of Sinjar back from the Islamic State with the help of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes.

The offensive, called Operation Free Sinjar, began at dawn with a series of airstrikes. Kurdish fighters estimate about 600 Islamic State fighters are within Sinjar, along with hundreds of landmines and other improvised explosive devices.

Kurds took control of part of Sinjar in an attack months ago. About 7,500 Kurdish fighters were expected to attack Sinjar from three sides to control supply routes before attempting to clear the city of IS fighters. Many of Sinjar’s surrounding villages have already been retaken by Kurdish forces.

“Once they get into this town, it’s going to be really slow going,” retired Lt. Col. Rick Francona told CNN. “They’re going to have to slog through this house by house, street by street. It’s going to be very difficult.”

Removing Sinjar from IS control would help divide IS territory by cutting off the Islamist group’s supply line between its stronghold in Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, and Raqqa, Syria.

Thousands of Yazidi people died when Sinjar was captured by the Islamic State in August 2014. About 50,000 Yazidi, a religious minority considered infidels by IS, fled toward Mount Sinjar and became trapped.

Hundreds of Yazidi men were killed and thousands of Yazidi women and girls were captured and used as sex slaves. Although most Yazidis evacuated, thousands remain on the mountain.

The IS attack on Sinjar was a primary reason the United States began airstrikes against IS positions in Iraq over fears of potential genocide.

In Syria, a joint rebel force consisting of Sunni Arabs, Assyrians and Kurds recently announced it was launching an offensive to liberate portions of the country’s northeastern al-Hasakah province from IS militants.

The group said it would not stop until the entire province was cleared of IS forces, and it referred to the offensive as “the first step of our military action within a plan of liberating the whole [of] Syria from the terrorist gangs.”