Kurdish
fighters have regained control of the strategic Iraqi town of Sinjar
which had been held by Islamic State (IS) militants since last year.
"I am here to announce the liberation of Sinjar," Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani said near the town.
Jim Muir reports from Sinjar that Kurdish Peshmerga troops are
walking in the middle of the roads to avoid unexploded bombs by the
roadside.
IS killed and enslaved thousands of Yazidis after seizing the town.
Some
7,500 Iraqi Kurdish fighters, backed by Yazidi militias and Turkish
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels are taking part in the offensive.
There is rubble all around: shoes, twisted cars, mangled trucks set on fire by air strikes.
You have to stay in the middle of the road - after all, IS are adept at leaving behind booby traps.
Long-term
fighting by the Peshmergas, who managed to get back about 30% of
Sinjar, and extensive damage by air strikes managed to cut off IS
fighters from all sides bar one.
They
appear to have escaped through the only route left open in the south.
They could have fought for a very long time if they had chosen to put up
resistance in the heavily-built town.
Meanwhile, at least 17 people have died in a suicide bomb attack in Baghdad.The bomber targeted the funeral of a Shia militia member in the south-west of the Iraqi capital and wounded more than 40 people.
Also
in Iraq, the army says it has launched an offensive to recapture the
western city of Ramadi from IS - although some local sources say the
advance has not yet happened.
Peshmerga fighters were greeted with scenes of devastation when they entered parts of Sinjar 
They have been fighting to recapture Sinjar since it was seized by IS militants in August 2014
The offensive to retake Sinjar began at dawn on Thursday backed by US-led coalition air strikes.
Kurdish
and Yazidi forces closed in on three fronts after coalition warplanes
bombed IS positions, command-and-control facilities and weapons stores.
Within hours, they had successfully blocked Highway
47, the main supply road linking IS-held Mosul, to the east, and Raqqa,
Islamic State's de facto capital in Syria, to the west, and secured
three surrounding villages.
The Kurds estimated that there were
almost 600 IS militants in Sinjar before the offensive began, but the
coalition said they believed some 60 to 70 had been killed in Thursday's
air strikes.
Thousands of Yazidis were either killed or abducted by IS
militants when they captured Sinjar in August 2015, but many more became
trapped on nearby Mount Sinjar without food or water for days until
they were rescued by Syrian Kurdish forces.
The risk of genocide was a key factor in the US decision to launch air strikes in Iraq.
Hussein
Derbo, the head of a Peshmerga battalion made up of 440 Yazidis, told
Reuters: "It is our land and our honour. They [IS] stole our dignity. We
want to get it back."
Speaking on a visit to Tunisia, US
Secretary of State John Kerry said the operation to retake Sinjar had
"serious strategic implications, not to mention the fact that the
Yazidis who have been attacked and murdered, slaughtered and driven up
on to a mountain and who have been living terrible lives over this
period of time, need the right to be able to return to their home".
Title : Battle for Sinjar: IS-held town in Iraq 'liberated'
Description : Kurdish fighters have regained control of the strategic Iraqi town of Sinjar which had been held by Islamic State (IS) militants sin...
