Operation Free Sinjar - TTG

Early today, Kurdish forces began their long anticipated offensive to take Sinjar and cut Highway 47, the IS main supply route between Raqqa and Mosul. By this evening, most, if not all, of Sinjar and several stretches of Highway 47 east and west of the city are in Kurdish hands. A Peshmerga commander claims that ninety percent of the military plans for Sinjar have been successfully implemented. Peshmerga engineers have been busy dealing with the many mines, roadside bombs and IEDs left behind by the retreating IS forces. US air support was key to the success of the operation. Luis Martinez from ABC News stated that “To support the ground offensive, coalition aircraft conducted 24 airstrikes that a coalition statement said struck nine ISIS tactical units, staging areas, and destroyed 27 fighting positions, and an assortment of weapons and bunker areas.” Now that’s an effort on par with the Russians.

 This offensive effort is not the result of a well oiled, consolidated Kurdish military force. The beginning of the offensive was delayed by competition and distrust among the different Kurdish forces. The Peshmerga of the KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party) attacked Sinjar and the highway east of the city. To the west, the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) and YPG (People’s Protection Units) accompanied by two Yazidi militias (HPS and YBS), attacked the highway and Sinjar itself. The Green Beret advisors on Mount Sinjar had their hands full keeping everyone pointed in the right direction.

Cutting Highway 47 will not automatically doom IS control in northern Iraq. There are a series of smaller roads south of Sinjar which will allow IS to move their smaller and lighter forces across the border, as well as supplies. It will be more difficult especially with Winter flooding, but far from impossible.     

There’s a lot of history among the various groups of the Kurdish coalition. Barzani’s KDP Peshmerga and the PKK have fought against each other. The PKK sided with Talibani’s PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) and ended up fighting the KDP during Iraqi Kurdish Civil War in the mid-1990s. However, this fighting left more feelings of distrust than hatred. 

The first trip out of country by the Turkish Foreign Minister after the AKP victory was to visit Barzani to secure KDP support in fighting the PKK. He must have hoped to capitalize on the PKK-KDP fighting of the mid-1990s. However, the Turkish Foreign Minister failed to extract any promises from Barzani. Semih Idiz, a political columnist for Turkey’s Cumhuriyet newspaper, said “There is a cultural stigma attached to Kurds who cooperate with Turkish security forces against other Kurds. Barzani may restrict PKK activities in the cities.”  

The Yezidis were aligned with, or under the protection of, the KDP until last year’s IS attack on Sinjar and the Yazidis. The Yazidis claim the KDP retreated and left them open to the predations of IS forces. They credit YDP and PKK forces with their rescue from annihilation. 

Although this history is real, the real question is who will control the Sinjar region once IS is expelled from the area. That's what the competition is all about. The Green Berets working with these forces have their hands full with trying to keep this coalition working effectively in the fight against IS. It is a mission fully within their capability. I envy them. Makes me want to pull on a set of ballroom pants and join the party. Ah, to be a young man again.

TTG

Comments

[J Villain]

Hats off to every one involved in the op.

[FB Ali]

Not "Taliban's PUK", but Talibani's PUK - as in Jalal Talibani!

[The Twisted Genius]

Brigadier Ali,

Thanks for spotting that. I'm sure that error would perplex some readers. I don't know whether it was due to an anti-social spell checker or personal sloppiness. I meant Jalal Talibani. Ahah! The culprit just revealed himself. It was the spell checker.

[William R. Cumming]

Thanks TTG for this explanatory posting! Very helpful!

[turcopolier]

TTG

Amen, brother. Amen. pl

[The Beaver]

Surprisingly,if one reads about analysis coming out of Israel, Russia + 6 are failing:
http://www.janes.com/article/55966/syria-offensive-stalling-israeli-assessments-say

Just an intro since the whole article is behind a pay wall.

And there would be people in the West , like the British FM who would believe such news ( based on his comments for the upcoming Vienna meeting on Syria)

[hemeantwell]

Excellent post, thanks. The NYTimes for once has some detailed coverage of the operation. The bits about weaponry and vehicles available to the Kurds stand out, along with the account of attacking via what sound like very hairy mountain roads.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/14/world/middleeast/sinjar-iraq-islamic-state.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

[bell]

propaganda competing with reality... wonder how their readers respond? wonder how the editors will respond, but i suppose it is what they get paid for.

[Joe100]

TTG -

How deep is today's real Green Beret bench to cover this kind of action - given the special operations focus on JSOC door kickers over the past decade plus?

It appears that there still are some good ones around..

[The Twisted Genius]

Joe100,

Our stated deployment of up to 50 or so Green Berets would mean only four 12 man operational detachments (ODAs). That's less than a company (6 ODAs). An SF group now has four battalions with 72 ODAs. The various Kurdish forces involved in this operation number only around 7,500. There are more than enough Green Berets to cover this mission and several others.

[r whitman]

TTG
A year from now, who will own Sinjar??

[alba etie]

TTG
Is there any evidence that some USG Senior Leadership is starting to push back against the neocon narrative ? I wonder what other Green Beret missions might also be taking place ? And would any of the recently stood up Jedburgh teams be involved in this action supporting the Kurds ? I keep praying that someone in position of authority has woke up and decided we need to support all of those killing the liver eaters writ large . Hope Springs Eternal .

[The Twisted Genius]

r whitman,

Who knows. My money is on the Kurds and Yezidis as long as Russia stays the course. Things aren't looking too rosy for the head choppers and liver eaters, but we can't take our eyes off them.

[The Twisted Genius]

alba etie,

Green Berets are conducting MTTs (mobile training teams) all over the world and always have been. There may have been a slowdown while we were so focused on Iraq and Afghanistan. My guess is that standard 12 man ODAs are supporting the Kurds. I haven't heard anything about those new Jedburgh-like teams since they were mentioned some time ago. Language training is once again being emphasized and additional training in LLSO (low level source operations) is being conducted. IMO, we are just going back to Aaron Bank's original UW concept.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Yazidis are Kurds.

[mike]

al-Jazeera reported that the Daesh made a tactical withdrawal and the Peshmerga entered central Sinjar unopposed. But I think they (al-Jazeera) missed the fact that the fighting has actually gone on for months around Sinjar and this was just the final push. IED clearing operations were key to the advance. Plus, like Kobane, the city is undoubtedly heavuly boobytrapped.

[The Twisted Genius]

mike,

The same kind of IS withdrawal occurred when the YPG took Tal Abyad. I don't know why IS would have given up that border crossing that easily. There must be something else going on. I've heard reports that damned near every building in Sinjar was boobytrapped.

[William R. Cumming]

MSM reporting Kurd's announcing they have seized Sinjar!

[The Twisted Genius]

All,

YPG spokesperson Redur Xalil announced YPG took Al Hawl today with the help of US air strikes and "Democratic Syria" Arab militias. Al Hawl was described as an IS transit point between Syria and Iraq.

[b]

The current dictator of Iraq's Kurd areas Barzani claims the city for his family gang.

This while the PKK and Yezidis did most of the fighting. Baghdad will also be pissed because the city was under its authority.

This makes it likely that we will see another war over the city. Probably as soon as IS is somewhat defeated.

Barzani is getting a bit too uppity. But he has no money and corruption is eating up his statelet. Either Talibani, or the PKK or Baghdad will take him down.

[different clue]

I was listening to NPR today or so. They were interviewing some surviving Yazidis living in their tent city. They all said it is good that Sinjar may be retaken, but they are afraid to go back and live there. The reason why they are afraid is that Sinjar remains surrounded by the same Sunni Arab villages that it was surrounded by before. And the Sunni Arabs in those villages had spent the last decades acting like they were the Yazidis' friends and neighbors. But as soon as IS took the area, the surrounding "friends and neighbors" of the Sunni Arab villages eagerly joined right in the raping and killing and burning and looting.

The Yazidis who were interviewed said they can never trust their Sunni Arab "friends and neighbors" ever again. The only way they would feel safe to go back and live in Sinjar is if a UN Peacekeeping Force were kept there to protect Yazidi Sinjar against all its Sunni Arab "friends and neighbors". Some also said there should be a new Yazidi province which could better protect itself and its people against the Sunni Arab "friends and neighbors".

[different clue]

Babak Makkinejad,

Do Yazidis see themselves as "Kurdish first" or "Yazidi first" or both equally at the same time?