um
in august of 2014 the islamic state
overran the yazidi city of sinjar
also known as shingal in iraq tens of
thousands of yazidis fled with many
ending up stranded on nearby mount
sinjar
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shortly after president obama ordered
the first airstrikes ever on the islamic
state
today i authorized two operations in
iraq
targeted airstrikes to protect our
american personnel
and a humanitarian effort to help save
thousands of iraqi civilians
who are trapped on a mountain without
food and water
and facing almost certain death in early
november the kurdistan regional
government forces
also known as the peshmerga finally
planned a massive operation to take back
the city
following weeks of heavy coalition
airstrikes vice news was invited to
embed with the peshmerga as they
reclaimed sinjar from the islamic state
we're at the main rally point right now
uh for the eastern side of mount sinjar
the operation's about to begin
and their mission here is to cut off the
city of tel aviv
we weren't sure what to expect whether
the islamic state would send
reinforcements and put up a fight
or whether they would flee and just
leave behind a booby trap destroyed city
where are you from shingon
yazidi were you in shingal in august
when isis first came do you remember
what happened
is
foreign
as we snaked along there was a hold up
an improvised explosive device or ied
planted by the islamic state have been
spotted earlier
we're hearing a lot more fire as we get
closer um and the peshmerga i've just
sent a few soldiers out over here to
look for more ids
which has got to be one of the worst
jobs to do
the peshmerga soon started launching
artillery fire into areas where is
fighters was still present
things are starting to get a lot more
hectic right now i'm not sure what that
is we think it's an airstrike there's
planes
overhead pretty much every five minutes
right now
this is an isis flag the peshmerga i've
taken down from a nearby position
and they seem pretty triumphant and
excited about everything and they're
going to keep pushing forward
tell us what's going on right here
again
highway 47 where we were heading
connects sinjar to the city of tel afar
where is has more support and many more
troops cutting off the highway would
disrupt supply lines between is forces
in syria and in iraq
dealing a major blow to their efforts
along the road a number of vehicle-borne
improvised explosive devices
or suicide car bombs had attacked the
peshmerga throughout the day
this was a suicide bomber here that made
an attempt earlier
and the car just fell into them and got
lit up right now
the operation addiction goal looks like
it's going to take more than uh what
they expected which was
roughly the same day as they launched it
we're headed out now to an area that's
supposed to be safe so we can crash
there for the night
um but there's sporadic firefights
happening on both sides of us like that
right there
and it's not a very fun ride
we're just stopped here right now we're
supposed to be going to a safe zone
it doesn't appear that the safe they
just evacuated one guy was hit
and uh
this was a good example of how is fights
and why it can take so long to get back
territory from them
a few snipers and a number of ieds were
able to slow down dozens of troops for
hours
despite the peshmerga's overwhelming
firepower
can you just tell us quickly what
happened over here
and do you think the peshmerga will be
able to take sinjar today or is it going
to take a little bit longer
again
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after the peshmerga got the situation
under control we headed back to the base
for the night
so we've ended up tonight uh at a base
where the engineers for the peshmerga
are staying
um and these are the guys that go and
actually disarm the ieds
which we saw a little too much of today
and which has been the biggest problem
um in this fight right now to take
sinjar
can you guys tell us a bit about what
you were doing today uh during the
operations
a
we're driving through some of the areas
that were that were cleared yesterday
there was
fighting in villages on both sides of us
we're following
an amrap which is a heavily armored
vehicle um and inside there is the
peshmerga engineers
and what they do is they're the ones who
go right to the front lines
and they defuse the ieds today you guys
are going to push into
sinjar city what's the situation here
this morning
what's going through your head right now
is there is there fear i mean you know
you're going to somewhere there could be
suicide bombs
there's definitely ieds
we decided to head back around so we
could enter the city with peshmerga
units who would be coming down from the
mountain
as we approached sinjar we saw thousands
of yezidi refugees living in tents
waiting to go back home
we're just nearing the bottom of the
mountain range right now
we've been told that the peshmerga have
already entered the city from all sides
with some people even saying that
they're under control of
nearly all the city but we're gonna head
in right now and see what we can find
out
we're entering to the city right now uh
they've cleared the main road of ieds
but the reason everyone's lining up
single file is because they're still a
little nervous
about the sides right here and about um
ieds that might be triggered
the battle for sinjar had been long and
hard but most of the fighting had
actually happened earlier
and by the time the convoys arrived many
of the remaining islamic state fighters
had fled
leaving only a few snipers suicide
bombers and ieds
this city may be liberated right now but
i don't know how
it's going to be rebuilt and how
anyone's going to go back to living here
city is completely
deserted right now and it's completely
destroyed as well
one thing that was clear as we walked
around sinjar was that there are a
number of pkk fighters in the city
the pkk or kurdistan workers party has
fought an insurrection against the
turkish government for 30 years
and is active in iraq syria and iran
they had poor relations with the
peshmerga
but both groups had done a lot of
fighting against is over the past 15
months
despite what devroom said the pkk alone
had been unable to take the city from is
for 15 months
and peshmerga troops and weapons were
clearly needed what
how has this last year been for you with
everything you've gone through and
you know having lost your home and now
taking it back
do you think that the people will move
back here the city is very destroyed
um and it looks like a hard place to
live do you think they'll come back and
rebuild the city
of
the islamic state's path of destruction
had left more than just physical scars
the town could be rebuilt eventually but
the distrust and hatred that now exist
between one-time neighbors
seems irreparable
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