Town Of Sinjar

Under the Iraqi town of Sinjar, Islamic State group militants built a network of tunnels, complete with sleeping quarters, wired with electricity and fortified with sandbags. There, they had boxes of US-made ammunition, medicines and copies of the Quran stashed on shelves.

The U.S.-backed drive by Iraqi Kurds to wrest the northern town of Sinjar and a slice of strategic highway from Islamic State could give new momentum to the Obama administration's strategy to defeat the extremist group, U.S. officials and analysts said on Thursday.

Iraqi Kurdish forces backed by US-led strikes launched a major operation today to retake the town of Sinjar from the Islamic State group and cut a key supply line to Syria.

Kurdish forces are massing in northwest Iraq for an offensive to retake the town of Sinjar from Islamic State militants who overran it more than a year ago, killing and enslaving thousands of its Yazidi residents and triggering US-led air strikes.

Jihadists occupying the Iraqi town of Sinjar are so close that Kurdish fighters can watch them without binoculars and battles are often fought with hand grenades.

The road to the battlefront plunges straight down the steep face of Mount Sinjar, whipped by a fierce wind. It is littered with trucks and cars that couldn't get up that incline, abandoned by their owners months ago as they fled the rampage of Islamic State group extremists.

Kurdish fighters advanced on the Islamic State extremist group in Iraq and Syria on Saturday, pushing into the contested, refugee-packed Sinjar mountains and gaining ground in the embattled Syrian border town of Kobane after heavy clashes, Kurdish officials and an activist group said.

Exhausted and terrorised, many of the Yazidis of northern Iraq who straggled into this Kurdish town after escaping the Islamic State deathtrap of Mount Sinjar recalled the agony of leaving relatives exposed on the mountain.

The Yazidis are a small, misunderstood and long-persecuted religious sect rooted in the town of Sinjar, in northern Iraq, and in parts of Syria and Turkey.

Under the Iraqi town of Sinjar, Islamic State group militants built a network of tunnels, complete with sleeping quarters, wired with electricity and fortified with sandbags. There, they had boxes of US-made ammunition, medicines and copies of the Quran stashed on shelves.

The U.S.-backed drive by Iraqi Kurds to wrest the northern town of Sinjar and a slice of strategic highway from Islamic State could give new momentum to the Obama administration's strategy to defeat the extremist group, U.S. officials and analysts said on Thursday.

Iraqi Kurdish forces backed by US-led strikes launched a major operation today to retake the town of Sinjar from the Islamic State group and cut a key supply line to Syria.

Kurdish forces are massing in northwest Iraq for an offensive to retake the town of Sinjar from Islamic State militants who overran it more than a year ago, killing and enslaving thousands of its Yazidi residents and triggering US-led air strikes.

Jihadists occupying the Iraqi town of Sinjar are so close that Kurdish fighters can watch them without binoculars and battles are often fought with hand grenades.

The road to the battlefront plunges straight down the steep face of Mount Sinjar, whipped by a fierce wind. It is littered with trucks and cars that couldn't get up that incline, abandoned by their owners months ago as they fled the rampage of Islamic State group extremists.

Kurdish fighters advanced on the Islamic State extremist group in Iraq and Syria on Saturday, pushing into the contested, refugee-packed Sinjar mountains and gaining ground in the embattled Syrian border town of Kobane after heavy clashes, Kurdish officials and an activist group said.

Exhausted and terrorised, many of the Yazidis of northern Iraq who straggled into this Kurdish town after escaping the Islamic State deathtrap of Mount Sinjar recalled the agony of leaving relatives exposed on the mountain.

The Yazidis are a small, misunderstood and long-persecuted religious sect rooted in the town of Sinjar, in northern Iraq, and in parts of Syria and Turkey.