Iraqi Kurds block vital ISIL link to Syria

Operation Free Sinjar aims to cordon off the town, take control of ISIL supply routes and establish a buffer zone to protect the town from artillery.

Thousands of people from the minority Yazidi sect were forced to flee Sinjar after ISIL militants attacked the town in August 2014. Rodi Said / Reuters / August 11, 2014

Mount Sinjar, Iraq // Iraqi Kurdish forces backed by US-led air strikes blocked a key ISIL supply line with Syria on Thursday as they battled to retake the town of Sinjar from the extremists.

Kurdish “peshmerga units successfully established blocking positions along Highway 47 and began clearing Sinjar”, the US-led coalition against ISIL said, referring to the main route linking the extremists’ Iraqi hub of Mosul to Syria.

A permanent cut in the supply line would hamper ISIL’s ability to move fighters and supplies between territory it controls in northern Iraq and Syria. And retaking Sinjar, where ISIL carried out a brutal campaign of killings, enslavement and rape against the Yazidi minority, would also be an important symbolic victory.

The US military said it had deployed advisers to work with Kurdish commanders behind the front line, as well as on the Sinjar mountain near the town to help pick out targets for air strikes.

US army Colonel Steve Warren, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the coalition, said about 60 to 70 ISIL fighters were killed in air strikes on Thursday.

The autonomous Kurdish region’s security council confirmed that Highway 47 had been cut, and said several villages near Sinjar were retaken.

“The attack began at 7am, and the peshmerga forces advanced on several axes to liberate the centre of the Sinjar district,” Major General Ezzeddine Saadun said.

Huge columns of smoke rose over Sinjar as coalition strikes and Kurdish shelling targeted ISIL positions in the town.

Up to 7,500 Kurdish fighters are taking part in the operation, which aims to retake Sinjar “and establish a significant buffer zone to protect the [town] and its inhabitants from incoming artillery,” the Kurdish security council said.

“Coalition warplanes will provide close air support to peshmerga forces throughout the operation,” it said.

The coalition carried out 24 strikes in the Sinjar area on Wednesday and eight more across the border in Syria’s Al Hol area.

Kurdish forces face an estimated 300 to 400 ISIL fighters in the town, Captain Chance McCraw, a US military intelligence officer, said in Baghdad.

But it is not just the fighters they will have to contend with: ISIL has had more than a year to build up networks of bombs, berms and other obstacles in Sinjar.

Col Warren said the battle for Sinjar was “part of the isolation of Mosul”.

“Sinjar sits astride Highway 47, which is a key and critical resupply route” for ISIL, he said.

“By seizing Sinjar, we’ll be able to cut that line of communication, which we believe will constrict [ISIL’s] ability to resupply themselves, and is a critical first step in the eventual liberation of Mosul.”

The Sinjar operation comes at the same time as others against ISIL in Iraq and Syria, increasing pressure on the group.

“It paralyses the enemy, right – he’s gotta make very tough decisions now on who does he reinforce,” Col Warren said.

In conjunction with the Sinjar operation, fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces group are battling ISIL across the border in the Al Hol area.

And Syrian regime forces broke a year-long ISIL siege of a military air base in the country’s north on Tuesday with backing from Russian air strikes.

A video released by ISIL on Thursday threatened attacks in Russia “very soon” in retaliation for its air strikes in Syria, which bgean on September 30.

The Russian language video with chants of “soon, very soon, the blood will spill like an ocean” was released by Al Hayat Media Centre, ISIL’s foreign language media division, the SITE extremist monitoring group said.

After seizing Mosul and driving south toward Baghdad in a lightning offensive in June 2014, ISIL again turned its attention to northern Iraq, pushing Kurdish forces back toward their regional capital Erbil.

ISIL overran the Sinjar area in August 2014, attacking the Kurdish-speaking Yazidis in what the United Nations has described as a possible genocide.

Thousands of Yazidis fled to Mount Sinjar, which overlooks the town, and were trapped there by ISIL.

Aiding them was one of Washington’s main justifications for starting its air campaign against ISIL last year.

International forces are also advising and training Iraqi forces, and American troops took part in a joint raid with the peshmerga last month in which a US soldier was killed.

With support from international 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.

But they had been concerned that retaking Sinjar would require a major deployment beyond it to protect the town from artillery fire.

“That’s absolutely been addressed ... There are enemy forces in towns south of Sinjar. We’re gonna isolate those with fires,” said Col Warren, referring to air strikes.

* Agence France-Presse with additional repporting from Reuters