Iraqi Kurds push into contested northern town

With coalition warplanes circling overhead, Kurdish fighters pushed into the contested northern Iraqi town of Sinjar Sunday, touching off heavy clashes with ISIS militants who have controlled the area for months, The Daily Star reported.

The battle for Sinjar and the surrounding areas has become the latest focus in the campaign to take back territory lost to the ISIS group during the militants’ summer blitz that captured much of northern and western Iraq.

Last week, Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters launched the operation to retake Sinjar. So far, they’ve managed to open up a passageway to Mount Sinjar, a long, rugged mountain that overlooks the town. That push allowed some of the thousands of Yazidis trapped on the mountain since the town’s fall in August to evacuate.

Pershmerga fighters said Sunday they advanced into Sinjar itself. Loud explosions and intense gunbattles could be heard echoing from inside the town as U.S.-led coalition warplanes bombed ISIS militants from the sky.

“We were fighting inside Sinjar. There were snipers everywhere inside,” 28-year-old Kurdish fighter Nabil Mohammad said.

“One of them fired a rocket-propelled grenade at us. I ran into a house and I was hit by a sniper’s bullet in my thigh.”

Mohammad spoke in a field hospital on Mount Sinjar, where he and many of the 20 wounded Kurdish fighters were brought for treatment. Ambulances rushed the wounded to the clinic. Inside, fighters wept as the body of one man killed by a sniper’s bullet was placed into a body bag.

Earlier Sunday, the president of the self-ruled northern Kurdish region, Massoud Barzani, toured Kurdish positions on Mount Sinjar, where he vowed to defeat the ISIS group.

“Most of the districts are under our control,” Barzani told peshmerga troops. “We will crush ISIS.”

Barzani also hailed advances by peshmerga fighters against ISIS in Sinjar.