Daily Beast: Kurds Retake Sinjar From ISIS, Almost Too Easily
ISIS hardly put up any resistance, but now comes the hard part of holding the Iraqi mountain city and allowing its beleaguered Yazidi residents to return safely.
NEAR SINJAR, IRAQ — On the morning of the offensive to clear ISIS from Sinjar City, the thud of airstrikes shook the earth as the Kurdish peshmerga fighters headed into battle. The sky was clear and the bonfires that the men had huddled around the night before were dying down. At the sound of warplanes above, the soldiers cheered and were in high spirits.
“A lot of airplanes targeted ISIS inside Shingal [Sinjar] today,” Sharzad Abdullah, a local student from the city, told The Daily Beast on Wednesday evening. “More than any other day, as I heard they carried out 50 airstrikes.”
The Daily Beast embedded with an advancing peshmerga column as it proceeded to cut ISIS off from the strategic M47 highway connecting Syria and Sinjar from the west. The road was clear of any ISIS presence. Tank fire rattled as the peshmerga cleared swept towns on either side of the M47. In the distance, trails of dust could be seen from what appeared to be the cars of ISIS fighters as they sped away to the south.
WNU Editor: Even I was surprised by this quick victory. Is this because the Islamic State is stretched and made the decision to not defend the city? Were U.S. air strikes devastatingly successful? Are the Kurdish fighters that good? I am sure that in the next few days we are going to learn some more on why did this city fall so quickly when the Kurds mounted their attack.
On a side note .... I find all of this recent U.S. Kurdish military activity revealing. For a year and half little if anything .... but since the Russians got involved the war tempo and the launching of military operations by U.S. backed fighters (and by the U.S. itself) have increased significantly. Is this a coincidence .... or is something else at play? My money is on the "something else is at play".
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