Yazidis have 'protectors' in Iraq, but question safety
Iraq's Yazidi ethno-religious minority is safe from the Islamic State, but now faces infighting among protective forces seeking dominance in Sinjar.
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq — Nearly five years after the Yazidi-majority town of Sinjar was recaptured from the Islamic State (IS), conflicts among opposing forces in the town hinder rehabilitation efforts and the return of internally displaced persons, and set the stage for a looming battle.
IS militants seized Sinjar, near Iraq’s northwestern border with Syria, in 2014. They targeted its Yazidi majority in a genocidal campaign of killing, rape, abduction and enslavement. In November 2015, the extremist group was expelled from Sinjar in an operation launched by many forces.
When IS attacked Sinjar, the Iraqi Kurdistan peshmerga forces withdrew from the town without a fight, leaving the Yazidis defenseless. The outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), based in the Qandil Mountains, rushed to aid Sinjar's citizens.
Now Sinjar is administered by the Yazidis' Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) — which some consider to be affiliated with the PKK — supposedly in coordination with the Iraqi army and police. But in a March 19 confrontation between the YBS and Iraqi army, two YBS fighters and one Iraqi army soldier were killed.
