Mass graves for Yezidi minority in Iraq found

The retake of Sinjar from the Islamic State (ISIS) is just a minor achievement and fighters should not be complacent as the terror group could just have pulled back or could be bidding their time before striking back, U.S. and Kurdish officials warned.

Nouri Said, the commander of a Yezidi unit of the Kurds’ peshmerga forces, says the forces will “remove the barriers along the front line” and move into the town.

Nawaf Ashur, a resident of Sinjar who was forced to flee with his family in August previous year, said the news of the mass graves has jarred the Yazidi community.

Arbil – A mass grave believed to hold the remains of dozens of Yazidi women executed by the Islamic State group was found on Saturday in northern Iraq, officials said.

“I am here to announce the liberation of Sinjar”, Barzani told a news conference near the northern town.

“This is the biggest strategic victory, and it was achieved in complete coordination with the (US-led) worldwide coalition, which carried out intensive (air) strikes”, he said. Kurdish forces discovered the grave while clearing bombs from the area which was recently reclaimed from “IS” militants.

The town is across the border from Sinjar in Iraq.

In the Sinjar area itself, the operation severed vital supply routes used by IS to move fighters, weapons and oil and other illicit commodities that provide funding for its self-proclaimed caliphate.

The Democratic Forces of Syria, which joins together the U.S.-backed YPG and several Syrian Arab rebel groups, announced its formation in October, and launched an offensive against IS in Hasaka later that month.

Elsewhere, the reported advance in the Aleppo province brought pro-government forces closer to the main highway that links Syria’s major cities, building on other gains made in the area with support from Russian airstrikes.

The capture of Sinjar could also have implications for Islamic State’s hold on Raqqa, the extremist group’s de facto capital in Syria.

The Iraqi town is the heartland of the Yazidi people, and was seized by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in August a year ago in a slaughter that prompted global alarm.

Speaking from Tunisia, Secretary of State John Kerry said coalition forces “are absolutely confident that, over the next days, Sinjar will be liberated”. Thursday’s attack – one of the deadliest in years in Lebanon – struck a stronghold of the militant Shiite Hezbollah group, and Prime Minister Tammam Salam chaired a security meeting on the bombings.

Patrick Martin, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, said: “The Sinjar operation strengthens Barzani vis-a-vis his political opponents”.