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 Islamic State's killing and enslaving of thousands of the northern
town's Yazidi residents focused international attention on the
group's violent campaign to impose its radical ideology and prompted
Washington to launch its air offensive.
Operation Free Sinjar aims to cordon off the town, take control of
Islamic State supply routes and establish a buffer zone to protect
the town from artillery, a statement from the Kurdish national
security council said.
Sinjar is both a symbolic and a strategic prize, sitting astride the
main highway linking the cities of Mosul and Raqqa - Islamic State's
bastions in Iraq and Syria.
U.S.-led coalition air strikes pounded Islamic State-held areas in
the town overnight, as around 7,500 Kurdish special forces,
peshmerga and Yazidi fighters descended from the Sinjar mountain
towards the front line in a military convoy.
The security council said Kurdish forces had captured a village to
the west of Sinjar and two others on the eastern outskirts. Reuters
could not independently confirm this.
 Spirits were high among Kurdish commanders and local officials near
the front line.
"It is going according to plan. We are optimistic and we consider
today like a celebration," said Sinjar district mayor Mahma Xelil.
Kurdish forces and the U.S. military said the number of Islamic
State fighters in the town had increased to nearly 600 after
reinforcements arrived in the run-up to the offensive, which has
been expected for weeks but delayed by the weather and friction
between various Kurdish and Yazidi forces in Sinjar.
The offensive is being personally overseen by Kurdistan regional
president Massoud Barzani, who is also head of the Kurdistan
Democratic Party (KDP), which other groups in the area accuse of
seeking to monopolize power.
Many Yazidis lost faith in the KDP when its forces failed to protect
them from Islamic State militants, who consider them devil
worshippers, when the group attacked Sinjar in August 2014,
systematically slaughtering, enslaving and raping thousands of
Yazidis.
A Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) came to the
rescue, evacuating thousands of Yazidis stranded on Sinjar mountain
and establishing a permanent base there.
Near the front lines on Thursday, a Kurdish officer stood behind a
wall of sandbags. Sinjar, about 300 meters (980 feet)away, could be
seen through a gap in a rampart.
Kurdish officers said an Islamic State sniper had taken up position
in the town. Coordinates were passed to a joint operations room and
within five minutes the position was bombed.
Islamic State militants could be heard communicating in Arabic and
Turkmen in intercepted walkie-talkie chatter.
"Where are you," asked one. "Praise be to God," said another. One
fighter noted that a car used by his comrades had been destroyed.
Loqman Ibrahim, head of the eight battalion, made up of Yazidis and
under peshmerga command, said he heard militants urging each other
to fight to the death and that an order was given not to withdraw.
Most Yazidis have been displaced to camps in the Kurdistan region;
several thousand remain in Islamic State captivity.
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LAND AND HONOR
The PKK has trained a Yazidi militia in Sinjar, while tribal groups
operate independently. Several thousand Yazidis have also joined the
peshmerga.
For Yazidi forces taking part, the battle is very much about
retribution.
Hussein Derbo, the head of a peshmerga battalion made up of 440
Yazidis, said the men under his command could have migrated to
Europe but chose to stay and fight.
"It is our land and our honor. They (Islamic State) stole our
dignity. We want to get it back," he told Reuters in a village on
the northern outskirts of Sinjar town.
Derbo's brother, Farman, echoed the sentiment, saying he hoped the
militants would not retreat so the Yazidis could kill them all.
The forces, many wearing the thick mustache typical of Yazidis and
carrying light weapons, had gathered at a staging position
overnight. They traveled in a peshmerga convoy comprised of Humvees
on flatbed trucks, heavy artillery, and fighters waving Kurdish
flags, flashing peace signs and brandishing their rifles.
Hundreds of vehicles wound slowly downhill along the same road
Yazidis had fled up last summer seeking safety from Islamic State.
Abandoned cars and blood-stained clothing on the roadside were
reminders of those chaotic scenes.
Around dawn, the fighters piled into their vehicles and headed to
the front.
Authorizing the first strikes against Islamic State in August 2014,
U.S. President Barack Obama cited a duty to prevent a genocide of
Yazidis by the radical Islamists.
The U.S.-led coalition has carried out dozens of strikes in the past
few weeks in support of the peshmerga, apparently coordinated with
the Sinjar offensive.
In December 2014, Kurdish forces drove Islamic State from north of
Sinjar mountain, a craggy strip about 60 km (40 miles) long, but the
radical Sunni insurgents of Islamic State maintain control of the
southern side where the town is located. The peshmerga currently
control about 20 percent of the town.
Backed by U.S. air strikes, the peshmerga have also regained most of
the ground they consider historically Kurdish. Sinjar is part of the
disputed territories to which both the Iraqi federal government and
regional Kurdish authorities lay claim.
(Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Michael Georgy and Giles
Elgood)
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