Peshmerga and Yazidi forces join up to retake the city of Sinjar from ISIS. The Daily Beast.

Kurdish and Yazidi forces on the move. The Daily Beast. 

A combined force of Peshmerga and Yazidi forces are on a new offensive to take back the city of Sinjar from ISIS. The Daily Beast. The coalition is made up of local Peshmerga Kurds, along with 1500 Yazidi militia along with some members of the PKK Kurdish terror group. Their objective, along with the city of Sinjar, is the strategic highway 47, which links the Iraqi city of Mosul with ISIS's main bases in Syria. So far ISIS has lost as many as 35 miles of the highway and six of the villages around the city of Sinjar. In the past few days the US military is very active in the area, with at least 38 airstrikes being conducted in support of the new offensive. ISIS is using an unusual defensive strategy. They appear to have withdrawn most of their forces leaving booby traps, suicide bombers and snipers behind. The hope is that if the city is retaken, the thousands of Yazidi refugees will be able to return to their homes. If the city is retaken, there are fears that territory will be ceded to the PKK organization, which has been designated a terrorist group. 

My Comment:

Looks like ISIS is under a lot of pressure right now. They just had a major defeat in Syria, where the Syrian army lifted a 2 year siege at an airport. I have also heard that the Iraqis are going to finally attack Ramadi and try and take back that city. That's not the first time I have heard that, so I will believe it when I see it. Either way though, that's at least three fronts where ISIS is getting attacked, and that's not counting Russian and US airstrikes. 

So do the Peshmerga and Yazidi have a chance to win in Sinjar? I think they have a chance. They have a pretty large force of  7500 troops. That is probably larger then the ISIS forces in the area. Still, I have to wonder how coherent and coordinated these forces are. The YPG, the PKK and the Yazidi all have different goals in the area and it's not clear at all how well these forces will work with each other. The presence of the PKK in this force also means that they could conceivably come under attack by Turkey. Turkey views the PKK as a major threat and a terrorist organization so despite their attacks on ISIS they may come under attack. That would be a diplomatic incident, to be sure, but it doesn't mean it won't happen. 

ISIS has fairly effective defensive tactics to go along with their offensive ones. Instead of having a last stand in Sinjar where they lose massive numbers of fighters, ISIS tends to withdraw from cities under siege. Instead of wasting troops the leave behind small suicide forces to set off bombs and conduct sniper attacks. These kind of attacks, along with booby traps, greatly slow down advances and allow ISIS to inflict heavy casualties on their enemies with only minimal losses of their own.

Still, Sinjar is an extremely important city for ISIS. They need to keep highway 47 open. Without that lifeline, Mosul is largely cut off, and I assume much of the rest of the territories ISIS holds in Iraq are as well. So far ISIS has been able to resupply and control the area around Mosul, but there is no guarantee  that the will be able to do so in the future. 

Of course, even if Mosul is cut off, there is still little threat to the city itself. The Iraqi forces in the area are nowhere near strong enough to take back the city. They haven't even been able to take back Ramadi, and that is a lot closer to their supply lines and main bases. The Peshmerga could attack Mosul as well, but that is far outside their normal areas of operation and I don't think they have any reason to take the city. And if they were to do so it would probably upset their Iraqi partners. I think for the foreseeable future, Mosul will remain in the control of ISIS.  

If the Kurds are able to take back Sinjar I wonder how many refugees will even come back. After all, even if they take back the city there is no guarantee that they will hold the city. The Yazidi may be too afraid to come back. Especially after what happened to them after ISIS took the city in the first place. Many of them are dead and the ones that weren't lucky enough to escape got enslaved. That may be too big of a risk for the Yazidi to take.