Kurdish fighters set to oust ISIL from Sinjar in northern Iraq

The goal is to not only liberate Sinjar, but also to cut off a key ISIS supply route stretching from Raqqa, in Syria, to Mosul, in Iraq.

On one front, a force of 7,500 peshmerga launched a ground attack on Islamic State positions guarding Sinjar, as US airstrikes hit scores of targets in and around the city.

The capture of the highway could hinder efforts by ISIS to transfer arms and troops by forcing the terror group “to resort to less efficient smuggling routes”, the Times reported. Iraqi Kurdish fighters have also held positions further outside the town.

Backed by U.S.-led coalition air strikes, Kurdish peshmerga fighters reached Sinjar from the east and west, the council said.

The main objective of the Kurdish Sinjar offensive is to get control of the strategic supply routes of ISIS, and then institute a major buffer zone so as to protect the town and its residents from incoming weaponry.

The coalition said 24 airstrikes were carried out over the past day, striking nine militant tactical units, nine staging areas and destroying 27 fighting positions, among other targets.

Islamic State uses Highway 47 to transport weapons, fighters and illicit commodities to fund its operations, said the coalition, which conducted more than 250 air strikes in the past month across northern Iraq.

US special operations forces were operating from a hill above the fighting in Sinjar, said Col. Steven Warren, the spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Baghdad.

Da’ish is the Arabic acronym used to describe ISIS. Islamic State recently moved additional fighters into Sinjar, where they now probably have about 700 members, according to the KRG.

The peshmerga asked the PKK not to take part in the attack to retake Sinjar, one PKK commander said, but he added that his fighters were ignoring that request and were joining the battle anyway.

Clearing operations The U.S. expectation is that it would take two to four days to secure Sinjar and another week to finalise clearing operations, a USA military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

As with previous military offensives, coalition advisers are located at Kurdish military headquarters in the area.

“Every aspect of this campaign has proven to be challenging, and this is going to be no different”, Cook said.

The Kurdish offensive opens up a new pressure point against ISIS in Iraq where Iraqi security forces have made slow progress against ISIS in months-long offensives in Bayji and Ramadi.

Sinjar lies on an important highway and was overrun by ISIS in August of 2014. The Kurdish government tweeted Thursday that “Sinjar now isolated from Tal Afar and Syria”. The persecution of Yazidis prompted the U.S to reenter Iraq for the first time since it withdrew troops 2011, in a successful military campaign to rescue Yazidis trapped on the city’s mountain.

Hundreds of ISIS fighters are believed to be entrenched in Sinjar.

Iraqi peshmerga forces launched a major offensive against the north-western city of Sinjar, near the Syrian border.