Peshmerga Troops Open Up Vital Corridor To Yazidis

Peshmerga Troops Open Up Vital Corridor To Yazidis Peshmerga Troops Open Up Vital Corridor To Yazidis Peshmerga Troops Open Up Vital Corridor To Yazidis Iraqi Kurdish forces battling militants from the Islamic State group managed to open up a corridor to Sinjar Mountain following a massive two day military operation, freeing thousands of Yazidis. Victory for thousands of Yazidis trapped on Iraqi mountains since August after Kurdish forces claim they have ended ISIS's siege of Mount Sinjar Kursish forces are celebrating their greatest victory over ISIS after claiming they have broken the five-month siege of Mount Sinjar - liberating thousands of trapped Yazidis. Around 8,000 fighters launched a two-pronged attack which they said had succeeded in opening a wide corridor to allow members of the Yazidi minority to escape. In the initial phase of the assault they recaptured eight villages - killing 80 ISIS militants in the process - and Peshmerga commanders say the evacuation of those trapped on the mountain will begin today. The news came as the US claimed airstrikes have killed several ISIS leaders in recent weeks. Officials said the twin successes will deal heavy blows to ISIS' command and control as well as their supply lines. The Kurdish advances came during a two-day blitz into the Sinjar region with some of the heaviest air strikes since a US-led coalition started the campaign four months ago. Masrour Barzani, the son of the Kurdish president and the intelligence chief for the Iraqi autonomous region, confirmed that the peshmerga advance had broken the siege on Mount Sinjar. 'Peshmerga forces have reached Mount Sinjar, the siege on the mountain has been lifted,' he told reporters from an operations centre near the border with Syria. The fighters said they recaptured eight villages on the way and killed about 80 ISIS fighters in the initial phase of the offensive launched from Rabia on the Syria border and Zumar on the shores of Mosul dam lake. They also lost seven men on Wednesday in Qasreej village when they failed to stop a suicide attacker who rammed an explosives-laden armoured vehicle into their convoy, officers at the scene told AFP. 'This operation represents the single biggest military offensive against IS and the most successful,' a statement from Mr Barzani's office said. A devastating ISIS attack on the Yazidi minority's Sinjar heartland in August displaced tens of thousands of people and was one of the reasons put forward by US President Barack Obama for launching a campaign of air strikes in September. Amid fears of a genocide against the small Kurdish-speaking minority, tens of thousands of Yazidis fled to the mountain and remained trapped there in the searing summer heat with no supplies. Kurdish fighters, mostly Syrian, broke that first siege but remaining anti-ISIS forces were subsequently unable to hold positions in the plains and retreated back to the mountain in late September. The peshmerga commander for the area said troops had reached the mountain and secured a road that would enable people to leave, effectively breaking the siege. Several thousand are still thought to be trapped there. 'Tomorrow most of the people will come down from the mountain,' Mohamed Kojar told AFP by phone, explaining the offensive had secured a corridor northeast of the mountain. Kurdish officials said the operation had dealt the jihadists a blow by cutting their supply lines and forcing them to retreat to urban bastions such as Tal Afar and Mosul, their main hub. ISIS still control the town of Sinjar, on the southern side of the mountain, and many of the surrounding villages. In Washington, meanwhile, the Pentagon announced that three top IS leaders in Iraq had been killed in US air strikes in recent weeks. 'I can confirm that since mid-November, targeted coalition air strikes successfully killed multiple senior and mid-level leaders' in ISIS, spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said in a statement. 'We believe that the loss of these key leaders degrades ISIS's ability to command and control current operations,' he added. The most significant figure was identified as Haji Mutazz, better known as Abu Muslim al-Turkmani, who was deputy to the group's chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.