Kurdish Troops Launch Offensive Against ISIS Controlled Sinjar, Backed by US

Earlier on Iraqi Kurdish forces backed by US-led air strikes blocked a key Islamic State group supply line with Syria Thursday as they fought to retake the town of Sinjar from the jihadists.

Peshmerga Maj. Ghazi Ali, who oversees one of the units involved in the offensive, said thousands of Kurdish fighters entered the town from three directions Friday morning.

Sinjar is important because of Highway 47, which lies alongside the town and links ISIS’ two biggest strongholds – Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in northern Iraq.

Last year, after IS captured Sinjar, tens of thousands of Yazidis fled the city into the mountains, where the militants trapped many of them, exposing civilians to extreme conditions of blazing heat and lack of water.

USA spotters are also seeking targets and directing air strikes in support of the Kurdish ground offensive, US officials said.

With support from worldwide strikes, Kurdish forces have regained significant ground from ISIL, and have been positioned on Mount Sinjar at the edge of town for months, with as little as 50 metres separating them from the militants.

He said the Kurdish fighters appeared optimistic they would take back Sinjar.

Hussein Derbo, the head of a Peshmerga battalion made up of 440 Yazidis, told the Reuters news agency: “It is our land and our honour”.

The Kurdish Sinjar offensive is said to have successfully taken part of the key highway from ISIS in northwestern Iraq, as the over 7,500 Kurdish fighters were able to complete part of their mission to get back Sinjar.

US officials estimate that there are around 400 to 550 Islamic State militants in the town. The White House has been harshly criticized for not doing enough to stem the growth of the al-qaeda spinoff group, which controls vast areas of Iraq and neighboring Syria.

Meanwhile, the official military media wing said that peshmerga forces wrestled control of five villages from Daesh in Sinjar. The danger of genocide proved to be a crucial element in America decision to start air strikes.

“We are waiting on the engineering team”, he said, referring to the teams of peshmerga who specialize in diffusing explosives. The town was overrun by ISIS militants a year ago, but as fighters battle their way closer to Sinjar, U.S. Military experts say this battle will be a tough one.

“ISIL is defeated and on the run”, the Kurdistan Region Security Council said in a statement, using an earlier acronym for the militant group.

“The ISIS terrorists have committed grave crimes in Syria and Iraq but the most barbaric and heinous crimes were committed in Sinjar”, said Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish Regional Government, who directed the operation from a command center near the town of Sinjar. They occupy an autonomous region in northern Iraq, but the Kurdish homeland also covers portions of Iran, Turkey, Armenia and Syria.