Kurdish officials said their forces were in control of villages on either side of the town and had taken control of a key road on a major supply route between Islamic State-held Mosul to the east and the group's self-proclaimed capital to the west in Raqqa, Syria.
The route, known as Highway 47 is used by Islamic State to transport weapons, fighters, illicit oil and other commodities that fund the militant group's operations, according to the U.S. Central Command. It says the U.S.-led coalition intends to increase pressure on Islamic State fighters and isolate their components from each other.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook described the operation as a collaborative effort between U.S. advisors and Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces. He said it is a specific effort to target the supply route and, if successful, will have a "significant" impact on IS operations in that part of northern Iraq.
"This is strategically an important area in Iraq in terms of taking the fight to ISIL," Cook said. "We're going to take advantage of every opportunity we have to deliver a blow to ISIL."
Warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition bombed the area Thursday after carrying out daily airstrikes for more than a week. Cook said coalition aircraft have carried out 36 airstrikes in the past 24 hours.
Some 7,500 fighters are taking part in the effort. In addition to retaking Sinjar, they want to establish a buffer zone in the area to protect civilians.
A U.S. military official who asked not to be identified told VOA a tough fight is expected, but that American military advisers in Iraq expect peshmerga fighters to gain control of Sinjar within two to four days.
The Islamic State group seized Sinjar in August 2014 as they terrorized the Yazidi minorities living there and besieged thousands of them in the mountains. It was that offensive that drew the first of more than 5,000 coalition airstrikes in Iraq.
The United Nations' top official in Iraq said Wednesday that Iraq’s security forces are making slow but deliberate progress against self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) fighters who control large swaths of that country’s territory.
Jan Kubis told the U.N. Security Council that since mid-July, the security forces and Shi'ite militias, supported by international coalition airstrikes, have pushed back IS fighters from towns and villages, and significantly, liberated the country’s largest oil refinery from the terror group’s control.
“The pro-government forces have proven their ability to conduct military operations in several areas simultaneously,” Kubis said.
Liberation operations
He said Iraqi forces and tribal volunteers are planning more liberation operations in areas such as the Anbar province capital, Ramadi, and in the northern Kurdish region.
He cautioned, however, that ISIL, as the group is also known, is far from defeated. “ISIL continues to possess the funding and military capacities to prolong its reign of terror over large swaths of Iraq.”
That the Islamic State is using just a few hundred fighters to fend off thousands of Peshmerga soldiers comes as no surprise to those who have studied the group’s tactics.
"They do not expect to hold Sinjar city and will relinquish it after a tough fight,” said Michael Knights, the Lafer Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Knights points to numerous examples over the past year in which the Islamic State staged a preemptive withdrawal from key cities and towns, especially in Iraq. And he notes the goup seems to routinely put more of an emphasis on holding rural or unpopulated areas on the outskirts.
"Sinjar city is a political prize for the liberator but it doesn't matter much in terms of cutting the routes between Mosul and Raqqa,” he said. "To cut the Caliphate in half you need to control the desert south of Sinjar between Sinjar and Baaj.”
A U.S. official tells VOA the hope is Peshmerga forces, backed by U.S. and coalition air power, will be able to continue the southward push with the goal of cutting off the Islamic State in Syria from its key holdings in Iraq.
James Denselow of the London-based Foreign Policy Center told VOA coalition forces and their Kurdish and Iraqi allies on the ground are making incremental advances against IS thanks to the close air support and what he called the “recent uptick in U.S. activity in Iraq.”
“What we see is a slow, painful but incremental progress pushing back [Islamic State]. So while it's impossible to extract trends from tactical victories, the long road to Mosul does appear to be one step closer in these recent capturing of key locations,” Denselow said.
Kifa'a Mahmoud, a military adviser to the Kurdish prime minister's office, said local residents have joined the fight.
Mahmoud said most of the officers and fighters participating in the campaign to recapture Sinjar are residents of the area, and are fighting alongside other peshmerga fighters to retake the town.
Military analyst Hossein Allawi said the peshmerga fighters' advance on Sinjar is a major blow to IS.
Losing control of the strategic highway between Sinjar and Telafar means that Islamic State operatives in Raqqa will will no longer be able to resupply their forces in Iraq by land, Allawi told Iraqi TV.
Growing humanitarian crisis
IS began its land grab in Iraq last year, seizing at least a third of the country, and displacing more than 3 million terrified civilians in the process.
Thousands of Iraqis are also seeking safety by making the often dangerous trip to Europe over land or by sea.
The latest U.N. report on the situation in Iraq expresses concern about IS abuses of civilians, including killings, abductions, rape, torture, forced recruitment of children and looting. The group is also believed to still be holding captive some 1,500 women and children from the minority Yazidi community.
The United Nations says more than 8.6 million people – nearly a quarter of the population – need urgent humanitarian assistance; but severe funding shortfalls have forced agencies such as the World Food Program to cut rations and reduce the value of food vouchers.
Kubis said further reductions may be required if donors do not step up soon.
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