Iraqi Kurds Break Mount Sinjar Siege, Free Yazidis

Local Editor

Kurdish peshmerga fighters have fought their way to Iraq's Mount Sinjar and freed hundreds of people trapped there by the "ISIL" in Iraq and Syria, a Kurdish leader said on Thursday.

"The peshmerga have managed to reach the mountain. A vast area has been liberated," said Masrour Barzani, the intelligence chief for the Kurdistan Regional Government's [KRG], adding that 100 "ISIL" fighters had been killed.
"Now a corridor is open and hopefully the rest of the [Sinjar] region will be freed from "ISIL"," Barzani said.

The assault ended the months-long ordeal of hundreds of people from Iraq's Yazidi religious minority, who had been besieged on the mountain since "ISIL" stormed Sinjar and other Kurdish-controlled parts of northern Iraq in August.
"All those Yazidis that were trapped on the mountain are now free," Barzani said, adding that the peshmerga had not yet begun to evacuate them.

Mohammed Kojar, the peshmerga commander of the area, said troops had reached the mountain and secured a road that would enable people to leave.
"Tomorrow most of the people will come down from the mountain," Kojar told said by phone, explaining the offensive had secured a corridor northeast of the mountain.

"This operation represents the single biggest military offensive against ISIS and the most successful," a statement from Barzani's office said.
Kurdish officials said the operation had dealt the extremists a blow by cutting their supply lines and forcing them to retreat to urban bastions such as Tal Afar and Mosul, their main hub.

Sinjar's awkward geography, out on a limb to the west, has made it difficult to penetrate. The road through the town is also an important supply route for "ISIL" militants between Mosul and neighboring Syria.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team