Iraqi Kurds Work to Clear Sinjar of IS Bombs

Video footage today of Kurdish fighters entering the town has shown massive destruction to its infrastructure from the weeks of strikes, including bombed-out buildings, charred vehicles and cratered streets.

“We want to give Sinjar more attention by working between the KRG and the Federal Government so that we turn Sinjar into a province so that it gets more services to be provided, more assistance and so we can help in this area”, says Bakir.

“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, ‘ said Warren, referring to the jihadists” main hub in Iraq.

“Death would have been better than what I felt when I saw that grave”, Taha told Reuters by phone from Sinjar.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but suicide bombings are a tactic used exclusively by Sunni extremists in Iraq, including the Islamic State jihadist group, who consider Shiites to be heretics.

Sinjar, the site of a brutal massacre by ISIL against the minority Yazidis, was seized from ISIL on November 13 by Kurdish forces backed by U.S.-led coalition air strikes. The victory stops ISIS from using a highway running through the city as a strategic route between Raqqa, its Syrian capital, and Mosul, a stronghold in northern Iraq.

Many Yazidis lost faith in Massoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party when its forces failed to protect them from IS a year ago.

Recent gains in the campaign against the Islamic State may mark a turning point for the administration’s strategy to defeat the terrorist group, which has taken a beating from his critics as being ineffective and too hands off, according to reports.

Kurdish forces said on Sunday they uncovered two mass graves outside Sinjar, a northern Iraqi town near the Syrian border that was ruled by ISIL for more than a year before the extremists were driven out last week.

“Sinjar is very important because it has become a symbol of the injustice against the people of Kurdistan”, Barzani said in his statement today, adding that “aside from the Kurdistan flag, we do not accept any other flag rising over Sinjar”.

Thousands of Yazidis remain unaccounted for more than a year after ISIL took a number of majority Yazidi towns in Iraq’s north.

Hundreds, possibly thousands, of Yazidis had been trapped on bare mountainside for up to 10 days.

“No one was fighting back”, Peshmerga Maj.

Homemade roadside bombs and explosives-laden cars targeting Peshmerga convoys have significantly slowed Thursday’s advance through Sinjar’s eastern and western fringe, it said.