Kurdish forces in northern Iraq launch offensive to retake Sinjar
In Iraq, Kurdish forces in northern Iraq have launched an offensive to retake Sinjar, a strategic town near the Syrian border from Islamic State militants. The campaign is supported by air strikes by the US-led coalition.
Tornado GR4 jets flying from Cyprus and Reaper drones struck fortified positions around the town in recent days.
Severing the supply line would hamper the jihadists’ ability to move fighters and supplies between northern Iraq and Syria, two countries where Isil has overrun significant territory.
Retaking Sinjar where Isil carried out a brutal campaign of killings, enslavement and rape against the Yazidi religious minority, would also be an important symbolic victory and also recapturing Sinjar would effectively cut off the supply line between the IS strongholds of Raqqa and Mosul. The campaign to retake Sinjar is led by about 6,000 Kurdish Peshmerga forces in alliance with some 1,500 Yazidi fighters known as the Sinjar Resistance Units and about 300 Kurdish PKK guerrillas.
“The attack began at 7:00 am (0400 GMT), and the (Kurdish) peshmerga forces advanced on several axes to liberate the centre of the Sinjar district,” Major General Ezzeddine Saadun told AFP. The autonomous Kurdish region’s security council said up to 7,500 of its peshmerga fighters would take part in the operation, which aims to retake Sinjar and establish a significant buffer zone to protect the (town) and its inhabitants from incoming artillery.”
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