ISIS loses grip on Sinjar, dealt blow in Syria

K urdish militia fighters supported by US-led coalition warplanes on Friday regained the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar from Islamic State (IS) militants, as Iraqi forces mustered for an assault to retake the key city of Ramadi from the jihadi group, the Kurdish Regional Command reported. It was additionally potential in that they might be biding their time before hanging back.

Kurdish peshmerga fighters in Sinjar, Iraq.

Smoke rises from the site of US-led air strikes in the town of Sinjar, November 12, 2015. Aside from terrorist positions, the airstrikes also targeted and took down control and command facilities, weapon storages, improvised explosive device cells, and other posts belonging to the extremist group.

Backed by U.S. and British planes, forces belonging to the Peshmerga, which is the official army of the Kurdish region of Iraq, raised their flag in the town centre.

Associated Press journalists saw the fighters raise a Kurdish flag and fire off celebratory gunfire in the centre of the town on Friday morning. The U.S.-backed offensive to retake IS-held areas in the southern parts of Hassakeh is coinciding with the push to retake Sinjar. Sinjar was also the site where ISIL jihadists brutally massacred a number of members of the area’s Yazidi minority.

About 7,500 fighters participated in the operation that began on Thursday.

The gains against the Islamic State are the latest sign that the group, which won a series of victories in a stunningly rapid offensive in Iraq previous year, is now on the defensive. “Today we took revenge for every Yazidi”.

Taking Sinjar back from the hands of the enemy is considered to be one of the biggest steps in the attempt to stop the ISIS from successfully establishing the “caliphate”.

He said the situation in the town was still risky, however, and warned it was too soon to declare victory.

“I can’t say the operation is complete because there are still threats remaining inside Sinjar”, he said. At least 21 people died when a suicide bomber struck a memorial service for a Shiite militia fighter who as killed battling IS in the southwestern suburb of Hay al-Amal; and five people died when a roadside bomb exploded at a Shiite shrine in Sadr City, officials said.

Iraq’s highest Shiite religious authority, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, praised peshmerga fighters in his Friday sermon for their efforts to capture Sinjar from the Sunni militant group.

Instead of putting the Islamic State’s oil-production capability out of action for days, the new goal is to knock out specific installations for six months to a year, the officials said.