Kurdish Peshmerga Pushback

"The morale of the enemy is down and we understand that a number of these elements are starting to flee."
"This is the biggest military operation so far conducted against ISIL [ISIS] and the biggest victory for the Peshmerga in this war."
"We will continue to free everywhere we can that is called Kurdistan."
Masrour Barzani, head, Kurdish autonomous national security council

"There are about two thousand families and they don't want to leave the mountain because they say it is their home."
"They need help and relief efforts, they need clothes for the winter. ISIS attacks are continuous from Khana Sor, a town north of the mountain."
Saad Babir, Yazidi physician

Peshmerga clearing explosives on the route to mount Sinjar. Vager Saadullah photos

Outside the town of Zumar at the village of Little Koban newly liberated by the Iraqi Peshmerga, troops cleared away the debris of their conflict and buried their dead. Air strikes have left craters littering the ground in the village. The bodies of dead Islamic State fighters are another matter altogether. Territory seized by the Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham in northern Iraq is being reclaimed in blood and sweat, as in the sky above coalition airstrikes do their work, and below the Kurds do theirs.

And they have done it very well indeed, fighting through the villages west of Zumar to bring relief to thousands of Yazidi trapped on the slopes of Mount Sinjar. Three days after launching their regional operation, backed by coalition air strikes, the autonomous Kurdish Peshmerga reached the mountain with food and other aid. A 60-kilometre-long ridge was finally accessed by the convoy working its way up the mountain to free the civilians and fighters trapped there since September.

Those so long trapped, swarmed the vehicles to receive food and good news. This is the very same area where tens of thousands of minority ethnic Yazidis were trapped for days in August heat, dying of dehydration for lack of food, water and medical attention until Syrian Kurds arrived to aid the Peshmerga in the rescue of those trapped, leading them down off the mountain to passage and safe haven in Syrian refugee camps. And on Saturday the very same factions once again were attempting to re-open that corridor to safety.

A load of Peshmerga troops arrive on Mount Sinjar. Vager Saadullah photo

So far, 430 square kilometres of territory has been returned to Kurdish control as relief supplies were brought in to aid those trapped by Islamic State. A change from the desperate situation that loomed in August when ISIS had advanced to within 50 km of the Kurdish capital of Erbil. Tens of thousands of Christians, Yazidis, Kurds and Turkmen had fled the advance, leaving at one point, 40,000 Yazidis stranded on the mountain top south-west of Mosul.

According to Mr. Barzani, son of the Kurdish autonomous president, Masoud Barzani, and leading the current campaign, over one hundred ISIS fighters were killed during the two-day operation. And people are now returning to their homes in Zumar, now that ISIS has been defeated there. Those Yazidis who had not fled in the summer, remaining on the mountain had been defended by some of their own fighters as well as the Turkish Kurdistan Workers Party and Peshmerga fighters.

With winter setting in, humanitarian  relief organizations are mobilizing to deliver aid. Those choosing to remain on the mountain do so to protect their homes and grazing lands. But there will be options; the corridor through the villages south-west of Zumar to the mountain represents easier access than the helicopter drops. The Peshmerga have now pushed on to the city of Sinjar from which the bulk of the Yazidis had fled when ISIS had captured it.

Still short of heavy weaponry, the Kurds anticipate that the relief corridor opening represents a turning point in their long battle against the Islamic State. The support and training they have received from Britain, the United States and Germany have been of inestimable assistance to their continuing pushback against ISIS.
 

Backed by air raids, which are now being carried out by a coalition of countries, Kurdish forces have clawed back significant ground from IS (AFP Photo/Safin Hamed)