Lessons from the Liberation of Sinjar

Lessons from the Liberation of Sinjar

A deeper look into the Sinjar offensive challenges assumptions about Kurdish capabilities and momentum toward Mosul. The Kurds did not expel ISIL and gain territories from a position of strength, but rather, from one of weakness. The Sinjar offensive was unlike offensives in southern Baghdad, where Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and popular mobilization units (PMUs), or Shi’a militias, expelled ISIL with concentrated force but minimal airpower. At Sinjar, heavy coalition airstrikes, alongside ground support from Kurdish forces from Turkey and Syria, as well as Yezidi fighters, neutralized ISIL in the months before the actual liberation maneuver was launched. It was this combination of force, and not the presence of any single Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga faction, that led to an ISIL retreat (or, as some say, a mere tactical withdrawal) without a lengthy urban battle.

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