Kurdish forces seize Iraq's Sinjar town from Islamic State
Source: Reuters
Kurdish forces backed by U.S. air strikes seized the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar from Islamic State on Friday, a Reuters witness said, in one of the most significant counter-attacks since the militants swept through the north last year.
"ISIL defeated and on the run," the Kurdistan regional security council said in a tweet, using an acronym for Islamic State. It said Kurdish peshmerga forces, which led the operation, had secured Sinjar's wheat silo, cement factory, hospital and several other public buildings.
Sinjar is home to Iraq's Yazidi minority who suffered at the hands of Islamic State when it overran the area in August 2014, systematically slaughtering, enslaving and raping thousands.
Iraqi Kurdish regional President Massoud Barzani also declared victory in an offensive that could provide critical momentum in efforts to capture the western provincial capital Ramadi, and Mosul in the north, an Islamic State bastion.
Read more at Reutershttp://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/13/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-sinjar-idUSKCN0T10AL20151113#xBfli7IKsd4o0IYK.99
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/13/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-sinjar-idUSKCN0T10AL20151113#1PRpMXi4AxO9Pv7L.97
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