Iraq Kurd chief announces ‘liberation’ of Sinjar

Sinjar, Iraq — Iraqi Kurdish leader Massud Barzani announced the “liberation” of the town of Sinjar from the Daesh (the so-called IS) terrorist group on Friday, the latest in a series of setbacks for the jihadists. The operation was led by the autonomous Kurdish region’s peshmerga forces but also involved fighters from the Yazidi minority, which IS targeted in a brutal campaign of massacres, enslavement and rape. The offensive cut a key supply line linking militant-held areas in Iraq with those in Syria. Across the border, the Syrian Democratic Forces coalition said it also delivered a blow to Daesh logistics, announcing that it had driven the militants out of Al-Hol, an important village on their Iraq-Syria supply route. The gains against Daesh are the latest sign that the terrorist group, which won a series of victories in a stunningly rapid offensive in Iraq last year, is now on the defensive. In remarks Friday, US President Barack Obama expressed satisfaction with efforts against Daesh, saying the group’s expansion has been curbed. “From the start, our goal has been first to contain, and we have contained them,” Obama said Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, told a news conference near the northern town: “I am here to announce the liberation of Sinjar.” His remarks also made clear that political conflict over Sinjar would be likely to follow the military battle for the town. “Sinjar was liberated by the blood of the peshmerga and became part of Kurdistan,” Barzani said. Baghdad, which has long opposed Kurdistan’s desire to incorporate a swathe of disputed northern territory, is unlikely to welcome that idea. Earlier in the day, hundreds of Kurdish fighters, dressed in camouflage uniforms and armed with assault rifles and machineguns, moved into the town on foot, an AFP journalist reported. Carrying the Kurdish region’s flag, they fired into the air and shouted “Long live the peshmerga!” and “Long live Kurdistan!“ Inside Sinjar, many houses and shops, a petrol station and the local government headquarters had been destroyed. Burned out cars sat in the streets, while barrels apparently containing explosives had been left behind. The huge task of clearing Sinjar of bombs planted by Daesh remains, and there is also the possibility of holdout militants, who have kept up attacks even after other areas in Iraq were said to have been retaken. The US-led coalition carried out upwards of 250 strikes in support of the Sinjar operation, killing an estimated more than 200 Daesh fighters, Colonel Steve Warren, spokesman for the international operation against the jihadists, told a news conference Friday. Daesh has suffered multiple setbacks in Syria in recent days, including in Al-Hol, which the Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of Arab and Kurdish fighters, announced Friday that it took the day before. And Syrian forces broke a year-long Daesh siege of a military air base in the country’s north Tuesday with backing from Russian air strikes. But in a fresh show of their still deadly reach, the terrorists claimed to have carried out two attacks around Baghdad Friday that killed at least 19 people, including the bombing of a funeral at a Shiite mosque. In a rare admission Thursday, the Pentagon said US ground forces advising the Kurds on their offensive were close enough to the front to identify Daesh targets and call in strikes. Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told reporters most of the US-led coalition troops were behind the front lines working with Kurdish commanders. But “there are some advisers who are on Sinjar mountain, assisting in the selection of air strike targets.” On Thursday, Kurdish forces cut the key highway that links Daesh-held areas in Iraq and Syria. “Sinjar sits astride Highway 47, which is a key and critical resupply route” for Daesh, Warren said. “By seizing Sinjar, we’ll be able to cut that line of communication, which we believe will constrict (IS’s) ability to resupply themselves, and is a critical first step in the eventual liberation of Mosul,” he said of the militants’ main hub in Iraq. Daesh overran Sinjar in August last year, forcing thousands of Yazidis to flee to the mountains overlooking the town, where they were trapped by the militants. The United Nations has described the attack on the Yazidis as a possible genocide. Aiding the Yazidis, whose unique faith Daesh considers heretical, was one of Washington’s main justifications for starting its air campaign against the terrorists last year. — AFP