Peshmerga fighters have been thwarted in attempts to evacuate thousands of people from Iraq’s Sinjar mountains due to landmines planted by ISIL extremists forced to yield control of the barren range.
Aided by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, Kurdish troops seized the mountains during fighting Thursday, with Masrour Barzani, head of the Iraqi Kurdish region’s security council, declaring that 100 fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) had been killed in the process.
“All those Yazidis that were trapped on the mountain are now free,” he added in reference to members of Iraq’s minority ethno-religious community forced to endure conditions on the plains for months.
But a military source in the Kurdish Central Command told Al Jazeera on Friday that despite the military success, it was not yet possible to bring trucks up the mountain with supplies because ISIL fighters had planted land mines along the road. Trucks will need to use the mountain’s dusty side roads, the source said, which could hamper an evacuation effort.
Thousands of Yazidis have been under siege since ISIL stormed Sinjar and other Kurdish-controlled parts of northern Iraq in August. As the Yazidis wait to be rescued, efforts to deliver aid to them suffered a further setback on Friday when a helicopter meant to bring supplies crashed while en route, Iraqi state television reported.
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http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/12/19/peshmerga-sinjarisil.html
