American, Kurdish and Iraqi officials have hailed as a “major victory” the release of thousands of distressed members of the Yazdi community, trapped for four months on on Mt. Sinjar in northern Iraq, since Islamic State thugs overran their town. Many more fled to Syria while Yazdi women were kidnapped.
This was a necessary rescue operation, but hardly a major victory, say DEBKAfile’s military experts. ISIS continues to maintain its grip on vast stretches of Iraq and Syria, defying the efforts of sparse US and coalition air strikes to dislodge them – beyond minor tactical withdrawals.
The town of Sinjar is not mentioned in the US and Kurdish releases, because large sections are still in jihadi hands.
Even less is heard about the situation on the northern Iraqi-Syrian border, where Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi has achieved almost total supremacy.
But the most telling omission by the US-led allies is the fact that, while they focused on Mt. Sinjar, ISIS forces restored their siege of Baiji, Iraq’s main oil refinery center, after pushing Iraqi troops out.
This happened after a majority of the local Sunni tribes who fought alongside the Iraqi army up until November, switched sides.
The tribal chiefs complained that the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who was installed in Baghdad with Washington’s support last year, as a figure able to unite the country’s Sunni and Shiite communities for the war on ISIS, reneged on his promise of pay checks and weapons for the tribesmen who threw in their lot with the national army.
