U.S. coalition-backed Kurdish forces launched a major offensive to retake the strategic town of Sinjar (Al Jazeera) in northern Iraq from the self-proclaimed Islamic State. The Kurdish Regional Security Council said that roughly 7,500 Kurdish peshmerga forces (NYT), aided by Yazidi fighters, were dispatched to the town, which was captured in August 2014 after the extremists seized Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city. United States-led coalition air forces raided the area (AP) overnight in preparation for the offensive, which seeks to cut a major supply line that connects Syria to Mosul.
