UPDATE 1800 GMT: Iraqi Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani (pictured) has marked the advance of Kurdish forces with a speech on Mount Sinjar.

“Thanks to God we have opened and controlled all the roads and broken the siege imposed on Sinjar Mountain,” Barzani said. “The liberation of the centre of Sinjar town was not part of our plans, but we have managed to take control of a large area of it.”


On the fifth day of their offensive in northwest Iraq, Kurdish forces are claiming the re-capture of the town of Sinjar from the Islamic State.

“We entered Shingal [Sinjar] from east of the town and cleared…the militants,” said Fazil Mirani, a high-ranking Kurdistan Democratic Party official. “From there we advanced to the town center and we are based there now.”

Mirani said there was only sporadic resistance, but that nearby land and hills are fortified with “lots of explosives and bombs everywhere”.

Footage of the Kurdish attack:

The Islamic State captured Sinjar in an August offensive that claimed much of the northwest. The town’s population, mainly from the Yezidi faith, was forced to flee. During the ensuring crisis, with the displaced starving and dying on Mount Sinjar, the US began its aerial intervention against the Islamic State. Thousands of Yezidis were evacuated, although hundreds were still on the mountain until the Islamic State’s siege was broken this week by the Kurds.

Kurdish officials say that more than 1,000 square kilometers have been retaken since Wednesday, with the Islamic State retreating to a line west of Mosul.

Mirani indicated that the peshmerga may soon take the town of Tal Afar, on the Syrian border, where “maybe fewer than 100 militants are left”.