Attention has once again focused on Sinjar, the strategically significant and Yazidi-dominated area in northwestern Iraq that has long been a tinderbox of ethnic, sectarian and regional rivalries. The United States has been quietly and thus far unsuccessfully working to calm it.
The Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) are closing in on the area as they clear the Iraqi-Syrian border of Islamic State fighters, part of the ongoing operation to liberate Mosul.