Posted on 11/11/2015 8:58:29 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
A push to take back the Iraqi town of Sinjar from ISIS by Peshmerga forces has begun, the Kurdistan Region Security Council said Thursday.
"Operation Free Sinjar will include up to 7,500 Peshmerga from three fronts to cordon off Sinjar city, take control of ISIL's strategic supply routes and establish a significant buffer zone to protect the city and its inhabitants from incoming artillery," the council statement said.
Coalition warplanes will provide close air support to Peshmerga forces throughout the operation, it said.
The world watched in horror last year as some 50,000 Yazidis scrambled up Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq to escape the ISIS onslaught. About 5,000 men and boys in Sinjar and nearby villages were massacred, according to U.N. estimates, while teenage girls and women were sold into slavery.
Since then, Sinjar has become a chaotic jumble of demolished buildings whose only inhabitants are a few hundred ISIS fighters facing off against small detachments of Kurdish Peshmerga forces.
But an operation to retake the town has been looming.
Now, some 5,000 Yazidi fighters have been mobilized under the command of the Kurdish Peshmerga to take the battle to ISIS. Most are farmers; a very few have military experience.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Isn’t this old news? I thought they already freed Shinjar. Notice there is never ever any news about fighting against ISIS unless its the Kurds. Where’s the Iraq military? Where’s the moderate islamists in Syria
“Now, some 5,000 Yazidi fighters have been mobilized under the command of the Kurdish Peshmerga”
Most Yazidis are ethnically Kurdish - just about all of them.
It will be very different this time around for ISIS, when these Yazidis come back to their homes. I don’t expect a lot of ISIS prisoners to be taken, or those that are to survive long after their interrogation is over.
That will mean a heavy dose of ethnic cleansing, as many of the perpetrators of the horrible atrocities against the Yazidis were their own Sunni neighbors, whom they have known all their lives. Payback will land hard on those many Sunni families that had members who joined ISIS.
Yazidis will want to be within the safety of the Kurdish Cantons in the future, and the Kurds will want them in.
The best option for the most horrific of these war criminals and hardened rapists, is now a lifetime of welfare in Germany, with perhaps some supplemental moonlighting as an on-call jihadi.
“Is this old news?”
It is current. There was a rescue operation for the trapped and fleeing refugees, but ISIS held the town of Sinjar. Now they are going to retake the town.
This is a big move, because Sinjar sits on the main road from the major city of Mosul (that ISIS now holds) to the Syrian Border.
Taking Sinjar cuts a main supply route and avenue of retreat for ISIS in Mosul. Essentially, this splits their “Caliphate” in two.
While Mosul is being encircled and beseiged in the East, Aleppo is being encircled in the West of their “Caliphate”. The isolation of these two major cities would leave ISIS basically clustered along a stretch of the Euphrates River from their Capital of Raqaa in Syria, to Ramadi in Iraq (just 75 miles from Baghdad).
Also, cutting this road prevents ISIS in Mosul from reinforcing their Capitol of Raqaa, if it is attacked. The Kurds in Syria (YPG) have already cut off Raqaa from the Turkish border, and are just 30-50 miles from the city, across open, sparsely populated territory.
This also comes just a few weeks after a major shift by the US. Special Forces that were based in SW Turkey training “moderate” rebels, have all been pulled to “train” Kurds, along with a big increase in SF guys getting deployment orders. So I would expect better US air support for the Sinjar operation, and an attack on Raqaa from the North, if it comes in the next couple of months (but that is a longer shot.
The Yazidis are eager to retake Sinjar City, so they can get their families back indoors before the worst of Winter. They are in refugee tents, and there will be a lot of mines and booby traps to clear.
Good analysis
I think the “ coalition” was kinetically energized by calls in Iraq to request Russian assistance vs ISIS
The Syrians with Russian air and Iranian ground support this week relieved the 2.5 yr IS siege of Kweires AB and are continuing to tighten a noose around Aleppo .... Operations are ongoing in Palmyra and Raqqa is the next goal ... With the tempo of Russian air ops roughly tripled and new FOB’s now in central Syria
There were protests around the world against the US war against Iraq (and even our battles alongside Iraqis against foreign ‘insurgents’).
Where are the anti-war protests against the imperialism of Islamic State?
Not a one. College campuses. Food Not Bombs. AmnestyInternationale, Pacifica Radio, et al. ALL silent.
“I think the coalition was kinetically energized by calls in Iraq to request Russian assistance vs ISIS”
I agree that Russia has changed the game. The Assad Government looks like it will survive violent overthrow, stymieing Turkish and Saudi ambitions. Sunni aggressors now on the defense.
After securing Assad, Iran would have eventually gotten back around to clearing out Mosul. That would be a bloody mess, but if the Iranians won, it would likely result in an sectarian cleansing of the Sunni majority there.
Obama’s Sunni friends probably don’t want to see Mosul leave the Sunni camp, after more than a thousand years. A new permanent demographic there would significantly tilt Iraq and its oil regions for a long time. If Mosul is purged, the cleansing of Sunnis could possibly spread up the Euphrates (hitting tribes with lots of members inside Saudi Arabia), and be sitting on the Saudi border.
I’’d like to think that US national interests drive our strategy and policy, but I have to consider the possibility of other motives and influences on our leaders that might be having an effect.
What is our goal? Blindly humanitarian, naive of political outcomes? Trying to keep Iraq aligned with the US (largely failed at this point). Just trying to keep the region weak and internally focused, by keeping them at each others’ throats? Trying to pursue the strategy of Presidential Study Directive 11, in support of Muslim Brotherhood (Sunni) ascendance in the Middle East, albeit ineffectively?
What do you think?
I knew I read this news before
2014 December. So they’re taking a town they took a year ago?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3239759/posts
Sinjar is the name of the city, the mountain and the region.
December 2014 the Kurds broke through ISIS lines to relieve those refugees stranded on Mount Sinjar.
Today they took the city, and cut the main supply route for ISIS.
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