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             Iraqi Kurdish Leader Visits Sinjar After IS Pushed Out

   by VOA News

   Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani visited Mount Sinjar after Kurdish
   peshmerga fighters broke a siege of the area by Islamic State fighters.

   Barzani, president of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, said
   peshmerga fighters have taken control of all roads leading to the
   mountain and have liberated the area, where thousands of persecuted
   Yazidis were trapped.

   He added that Kurdish forces will not allow any Islamic State fighters
   to remain in areas peshmerga can reach.

   On Saturday, peshmerga forces - backed by U.S.-led airstrikes - swept
   across the northern side of Sinjar mountain and pushed southward toward
   Sinjar town and the besieged city of Tal Afar to the east.

   A 32-truck aid convoy sent by Iraqi Kurds to the entrapped Yazidis also
   reached the mountain Saturday.

   Islamic State siege

   Islamic State jihadists captured almost a third of Iraq and nearby
   Syria earlier this year, plunging the region into chaos.

   The towns of Sinjar and Zumar fell to the extremist group in early
   August, forcing tens of thousands of Yazidis to flee to the mountain,
   where they were encircled.

   Since then, Iraqi Kurds and Yazidi fighters have regained most of the
   ground they had lost in northern Iraq.

   On Wednesday, an estimated 8,000 peshmerga fighters launched what their
   leaders described as the largest operation yet against the Islamic
   State jihadists.

   The push is expected to force many Islamic State fighters westward into
   nearby Syria or eastward to the extremist-controlled Iraqi second city
   of Mosul.
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/iraqi-kurdish-leader-visits-sinjar-af
   ter-is-pushed-out/2567856.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/iraqi-kurdish-leader-visits-sinjar-after-is-pushed-out/2567856.html