Iraqi Kurdish regional president Massud Barzani on Friday announced the “liberation” of the town of Sinjar in a major operation against the ISIS group.
“I am here to announce the liberation of Sinjar,” Barzani told a news conference near the northern town. Speaking in Tunisia around the same time, US Secretary of State John Kerry said he was “absolutely confident” the town would be freed in the operation by Kurdish peshmerga backed by US-led airstrikes and ground spotters. The lightning assault, which also involved fighters from the Yazidi minority that ISIS has brutally targeted in the Sinjar area, began on Thursday.
Kurdish forces were able to cut Highway 47, one of the ISIS’s main supply routes to neighbouring Syria, which runs past Sinjar, and entered the town the following day. But Barzani’s remarks also made clear the battle for Sinjar was likely to be followed by political conflict. “Sinjar was liberated by the blood of the peshmerga and became part of Kurdistan,” Barzani said.