Kurdish forces are massing in northwest Iraq for an offensive to retake the town of Sinjar from Islamic State militants who overran it more than a year ago, killing and enslaving thousands of its Yazidi residents and triggering U.S.-led air strikes.
Sinjar is a symbolic and strategic prize sitting astride the main highway linking the cities of Mosul and Raqqa - Islamic State’s bastions in Iraq and Syria.
In December 2014, Kurdish forces drove Islamic State from north of Sinjar mountain, a craggy strip some 60 km long, but the radical Sunni insurgents maintain control of the southern side where the town is located. Villagers along a main road to the mountain reported seeing dozens of military transport vehicles packed with Kurdish peshmerga fighters pass in recent days.
Preparations for the offensive have been complicated by rivalry between various Kurdish and Yazidi forces in Sinjar.
Peshmerga officials declined to comment on the operation, but a Kurdish security source said it would begin once the weather improved and intelligence-gathering had been completed.
The challenge, he said, would be to defend the town after it is re-captured because the offensive will open up new fronts with the militants, who have declared a medieval-style caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria. — Reuters
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