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Kurdish Sinjar offensive too late for some Yazidis

Whatever the outcome of the battle of Sinjar, it will take a while for Yazidis to regain confidence in the peshmerga, whom they blame for abandoning the town to the Islamic State.
Female fighters of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) stand near the border between Syria and Iraq, close to the Iraqi town of Snoun December 22, 2014. On Sunday, Kurdish and Yazidi fighters battled to take the Sinjar back from Islamic State after breaking a months-long siege of the mountain above it. Seizing the town would restore the majority of territory Iraq's Kurds lost in Islamic State's surprise offensive in August Picture taken December 22, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer (IRAQ - Tags: POLITICS CIVI
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MOUNT SINJAR, Iraq — Latif Alo is a Kurdish fighter in his early 40s heading toward the town of Sinjar to fight. Driving along the only road leading to the town, Alo has become restless to reach the front line, where fierce fighting is continuing between Kurdish forces supported by US-led coalition airstrikes and Islamic State (IS) militants. He's on a mission, with an old BRNO rifle inherited from his father and a leather bullet vest around his waist.

"I have come here to fight Daesh," said Alo, as smoke rose from the town at the southern foot of the mountain over which the boom of airstrikes reverberated. “They took many of our girls. Our honor has been violated. I have come back here to free them."

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