Isis advances bring Kurds into conflict in northern Iraq

06 August 2014

Islamists and Peshmerga clash at Mosul dam; humanitarian crisis in Yazidi town of Sinjar

Advances by Islamist militants in northern Iraq have moved into Kurdish-held territory as the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) becomes increasingly drawn into the conflict.

Kurdish fighters have engaged Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) fighters in a bid to retake the town of Sinjar – inhabited by the Kurdish Yazidi religious sect – and have been fighting for control of Iraq’s largest hydroelectric dam north of Mosul.

Thousands of Yazidis have fled into the mountains after Isis moved into Sinjar on 3 August, with Unicef reporting on 5 August that 25,000 children were stranded and in need of humanitarian aid.

At Iraq’s largest dam on the river Tigris, 50 kilometres north of Mosul there were conflicting reports over who was in control, but it emerged that KRG forces held on after the arrival of reinforcements.

Isis fighters have taken control of key industrial assets infrastructure as they have spread over northern and western Iraq and large areas of Syria.

According to the state-run Northern Oil Company, Isis has seized the Ain Zalah and Butmah, which have a combined crude capacity of almost 20,000 barrels a day (b/d).

The militants also captured a sulphur mine near Mosul just weeks after the state-run mining and processing facility had taken delivery of $53m-worth of equipment.

The Kurdish Peshmerga forces seized several oil assets around Kirkuk in July after Iraqi security forces fled Isis’ advance on the area, giving the KRG the lion’s share of northern Iraq’s oil production capacity.

While the KRG’s stance on Isis up until August has largely been defensive, the spread of Islamist insurgents into Kurdish-held towns has put Erbil on the offensive.

KRG president Massoud Barzani has told Yazidi sect leaders that Kurdish forces will retake Sinjar from Isis, according to a statement on the regional government’s website.

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