Iraqi forces take Sinjar from Kurds

Published October 18, 2017
IRAQI government forces gesturing as they enter the Havana oil field, west of Kirkuk, on Tuesday.—AFP
IRAQI government forces gesturing as they enter the Havana oil field, west of Kirkuk, on Tuesday.—AFP

BAGHDAD: Iraqi forces said on Tuesday that they had taken the Yazidi Kurdish town of Sinjar from Kurdish peshmerga forces as they pressed a campaign against Kurdish-held areas outside the autonomous region.

The advance comes after federal government troops and militia seized the governor’s office and key military bases and oil fields in the disputed province of Kirkuk, as tensions boiled over after the Kurds voted for independence last month.

“The Iraqi army and Popular Mobilisation Forces entered the town of Sinjar after the peshmerga withdrew without a fight,” said the Hashed al-Shaabi, a paramilitary force made up largely of Iran-trained Shiite militias.

The north-western town is infamous as the site of one of the militant Islamic State (IS) group’s worst atrocities, when it killed thousands of Yazidi men and abducted thousands of women and girls as sex slaves in 2014.

Tens of thousands of civilians fled into the nearby mountains in appalling conditions, helping to trigger US intervention against the militants.

The Yazidis are Kurdish-speaking but follow their own non-Muslim faith that earned them the hatred of the Sunni Muslim extremists of IS.

Following the exodus of 2014, many Yazidis volunteered to fight against IS, either in their own militias or those sponsored by the Kurds or by the government.

The Hashed said that Yazidi fighters in its ranks had deployed in Sinjar. The town was taken from IS by Kurdish forces in 2015.

Sinjar and Kirkuk form part of a swathe of historically Kurdish-majority territory that the Kurds want to incorporate in their autonomous region in the north against the wishes of Baghdad.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2017

Opinion

Editorial

Judiciary’s SOS
Updated 28 Mar, 2024

Judiciary’s SOS

The ball is now in CJP Isa’s court, and he will feel pressure to take action.
Data protection
28 Mar, 2024

Data protection

WHAT do we want? Data protection laws. When do we want them? Immediately. Without delay, if we are to prevent ...
Selling humans
28 Mar, 2024

Selling humans

HUMAN traders feed off economic distress; they peddle promises of a better life to the impoverished who, mired in...
New terror wave
Updated 27 Mar, 2024

New terror wave

The time has come for decisive government action against militancy.
Development costs
27 Mar, 2024

Development costs

A HEFTY escalation of 30pc in the cost of ongoing federal development schemes is one of the many decisions where the...
Aitchison controversy
Updated 27 Mar, 2024

Aitchison controversy

It is hoped that higher authorities realise that politics and nepotism have no place in schools.