Battle for Sinjar: Kurdish forces enter IS-held town in Iraq

[MowCowWhoHow III]

Source: BBC

Kurdish fighters have entered Sinjar in northern Iraq, a day after launching an offensive to retake it from Islamic State (IS) militants.

The Kurdistan Regional Security Council said in a tweet that Peshmerga forces had entered "from all directions" and were clearing the town of IS.

The Kurdish offensive is supported by US-led coalition air strikes.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi army says it has launched an offensive to recapture the western city of Ramadi from IS.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/34806556

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Reuters: Kurdistan Security Council says Islamic State in #Sinjar is "defeated and on the run" as Kurdish forces regain control of the town

https://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak/status/665091260995256320

[Herman4747]

1. Good job, Kurds!

[MowCowWhoHow III]

2. Iraqi Kurdistan president says Islamic State defeated in Sinjar

Iraqi Kurdistan president says Islamic State defeated in Sinjar

Iraqi Kurdish regional President Massoud Barzani said on Friday that the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar had been seized from Islamic State militants in an offensive by Kurdish forces backed by U.S.-led air strikes.

"The liberation of Sinjar will have a big impact on liberating Mosul," Barzani told reporters atop Mount Sinjar, overlooking the town.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/13/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-sinjar-idUSKCN0T10AL20151113

[bemildred]

3. Run, Surrender or Die: Kurds Boot Out ISIL From Northern Iraq

After a series of clashes, Kurdish militias began to push ISIL away from the Sinjar province of Northern Iraq, Peshmerga General Taib Abdullah Gurdy told Sputnik.

ISIL is losing a large number of fighters and heavy weaponry. During a recent military operation, Kurds managed to kill Abu Jihad, a major ISIL intelligence officer in the Sinjar province, the Peshmerga general said.

"We have regained 70 percent of Sinjar," Gurdy informed.

According to the Peshmerga general, there are no Iraqi government troops fighting against ISIL, but several units of Kurdish volunteer militia forces.

"More than 7,000 Pershmerga fighters are taking part in the operations, and another 20,000 are ready to join the fight at any given moment," Gurdy told Sputnik.

http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151112/1030004006/kurds-peshmerga-isil-sinjar-iraq.html

[Joe Chi Minh]

5. I had a suspicion it would be : 'Die or die.'

[bemildred]

6. Could be. nt

[Joe Chi Minh]

8. Don't see too many pictures of prisoners any time much after they've been captured.

Pictures of prisoners, period, actually.

[bemildred]

9. Atrocities can have that effect, but a lot of them are running away.

That's what it says.

I think they are running out of people and guns now. Their rate of attrition has been raised a lot.

Stay tuned, they could counterattack, or they could just crumble. Air power is proving decisive. Where will they run to?

[Joe Chi Minh]

11. I think they must be running out of people. Most of the

wildly enthusiastic disaffected European young people, encouraged by our bent media, would have heard that the Americans would be covertly supporting them, so assumed they would be in clover.

Only God has geopolitical plans which tend to seriously wrong-foot our world's leaders. Hitler and the Nazis thought they had Russia, and hence probably the rest of the world, in the palm of their hand, and it sure looked like it at that point.
I read ISIS had summoned thousands of troops from somewhere, but I'm inclined to doubt it.

What is interesting in a scary way is that apparently, ignoring an agreement with the Russians, the Israelis sent planes to support their 'moderate'(!) terrorists in Syria. then you have the US defying an apparent ultimatum by the Chinese, so any survivors can perhaps look forward to WWIV being fought with sticks and stones, as Einstein predicted !

And what happens, if no conflagration supervenes in the meantime, if the Russkis decide to 'assist' the Iraqis in the same way they are assisting Assad ? And then the Yemen ?

[tabasco]

4. The Kurds deserve our support

and I'm glad we're giving it to them.

[bemildred]

7. U.S.-backed Syrian alliance seizes town near Iraqi border

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A U.S.-backed Syrian rebel alliance on Friday captured the town of al Houl in Hasaka province, which had been held by Islamic State militants, a spokesman for the Kurdish fighters, part of the grouping, said.

It was the first significant advance against IS by the Democratic Forces of Syria, which was formed last month.

Redur Xelil, who is in the town, close to the Iraqi border, told Reuters Islamic State fighters had fled. Britain-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the takeover.

Al Houl has been the focus of a two-week-old campaign by the alliance to flush out Islamic State from northeastern areas.

http://news.yahoo.com/u-backed-syrian-alliance-seizes-town-near-iraqi-144637456.html

ISIS is crumbling.

[bemildred]

10. Turning Point: Coordinated Operations in the War on ISIS

Coordinated military offensives against ISIS have begun in the Middle East. In Iraq, Kurdish Peshmerga, with Special Ops and Coalition support, have begun an attack on an ISIS held city that controls an ISIS supply road. In Syria, Kurdish YPG and YPJ units, also backed by airstrikes and U.S. Special Operations, are attacking a town on their side of the border that controls the same road. Concurrently, Russian backed Syrian forces have taken an airport that ISIS has controlled since 2013. And in the EU, there was a wide sweep with arrests of ISIS linked jihadists.

ISIS is fighting back with booby traps and car bombs, including an attack in Beirut that has killed dozens, with offensives against Kurds in Syria, with, potentially, the downed Russian airplane over the Sinai, with the twin bombings recently in Turkey, and with jihadist planned attacks in Europe. But the war has changed. The Syrian tragedy seems to have come into focus for Russia, Assad and their Hezbollah allies, for the U.S., their Kurdish allies, and for the Iraqi and Syrian Arabs who are fed up with ISIS and who now may be working together.

In Iraq, 7,500 Kurdish Peshmerga, along with U.S. Special Forces and Coalition air support, have moved to retake the town of Sinjar from ISIS. This is significant because the road (called Road 47) that runs through the Yezidi town is ISIS's supply route between their "capital" of Raqqa in Syria and Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq that ISIS controls.

SINJAR, Iraq -- Supported by U.S.-led airstrikes, Kurdish Iraqi troops on Thursday seized part of a highway that is used as a vital supply line for the Islamic State group, a key initial step in a major offensive to retake the strategic town of Sinjar from the militants.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-ritz/turning-point-coordinated_b_8546862.html