Iraqi Kurdish fighters have broken the Islamic State (ISIS) group's four-month siege on Mount Sinjar, where over 40,000 Yazidis fled for their lives fearing a massacre at the hands of the jihadist group.
"Peshmerga forces were able to connect with their [Yazidi] brothers on Mount [Sinjar] today after launching a military operation that started from the Zumar area yesterday," Kurdish Regional Security Council chief Masrour Barzani told reporters Thursday in a news conference near the front line.
"We give this news to the people of Kurdistan and the world that the enemies of Kurdistan, the enemies of humanity and coexistence have faced a major defeat."
He announced that the Kurdish military advance would allow for the evacuation of the Yazidis still on the mountain, adding that peshmerga troops were aiming to “clear the whole area completely of ISIS.”
The BBC cited Peshmerga commanders as saying they expected the evacuations to begin Friday.
Most of the Yazidis who originally fled from the town of Sinjar to the nearby mountaintops escaped the ISIS siege by crossing the border into Syria, but hundreds remain in the area.
In the fall, the siege prompted the US to launch a series of dramatic humanitarian air drops to aid the Yazidis and begin its military campaign against ISIS.
The Kurdish Campaign
Kurdish troops launched their offensive against ISIS on Wednesday in a three-pronged assault outside the town of Sinjar, which is still under ISIS control after being seized by the Islamists in early August.
"Eight thousand peshmerga participated in the operation, which began at 4:15 a.m. on Dec. 17 with international coalition airstrikes followed by a ground-based assault," the Kurdish Regional Security Council said.
Coalition jets on Wednesday conducted 45 airstrikes to support Kurdish troops in an aerial blitz that officials told CNN was the largest in the Sinjar area since the beginning of the anti-ISIS campaign.
"Precision airstrikes from 15 coalition aircraft destroyed approximately 50 targets, [including] bulldozers, vehicles, checkpoints, enemy fighting positions, enemy fighters, and equipment," US Central Command said in a statement.
Since Wednesday, Kurdish troops have seized "700 square kilometers of ISIS-held territory between Zumar and Mount Sinjar," the Kurdish Security Council said.
"This recent success has enabled the peshmerga to surround an additional 2,100 square kilometers of ISIS-held territory."
It also said "ISIS fighters have been fleeing in large numbers towards the Syrian border and towards ISIS strongholds such as Tal 'Afar and Mosul."
The Kurdish Rudaw news agency on Thursday evening reported that peshmerga troops were continuing to press their offensive, advancing on Zumar and Sinjar.
"In the latest push against the militants, the Kurdish forces launched an assault to retake Tall Awainat, a town in southern Zumar in Nineveh province."
The Kurds have emphasized that they are conducting their offensive unilaterally, without the support of Iraqi state forces or Shiite militants, which have worked together with peshmerga troops northeast of Baghdad in the Diyala province.
Grateful For US Support
The US praised the Kurds on their military campaign, with US Vice President Joe Biden calling Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani to offer his support.
"Biden praised the peshmerga forces for their victory over ISIS near the border with Syria," a Kurdish presidential statement said.
Biden told Barzani that "the eyes of the world were on the Kurdish peshmerga in the fight against terrorism," the statement added.
Meanwhile, Barzani met with a US Congressional delegation in the KRG's capital Erbil and voiced his thanks for Washington's support.
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