Video — Kurdish Troops Go on the Attack Near Zaghar
It’s graphic but important that you watch
by BENEDETTA ARGENTIERI
The war along the Kurdish front line has, for the most part, settled into a stalemate. It’s been this way for months. Kurdish peshmerga face off with Islamic State and exchange sniper shots, machine gun fire and mortar rounds.
But it’s not like that everywhere. On Sept. 11, Kurdish forces loaded up in hundreds of vehicles and launched a brief offensive near Zaghar, South Kirkuk. At least seven peshmerga died in the assault. The Kurdish army even brought along bulldozers to clear booby traps and to demolish a village.
“It’s too dangerous, the place is full of explosives and if we wouldn’t destroy this village Daesh might come back at some point,” a peshmerga major told War Is Boring.
The video below includes graphic images of dead Islamic State fighters.
“If they were men, they would stay here and fight,” Kurdish Sgt. Abdullah Pshitiwan said, referring to Islamic State. Just before he told us that, an improvised explosive device blew up near him and injured six soldiers.
The offensive gave some clues to Islamic State’s defensive tactics. The Sunni militants are very good at delaying attackers and buying time. Like an onion, every time the Kurds try to peel back a defensive layer, there’s another one waiting.
Then there’s the IED, which is one of Islamic State’s most important weapons. Lethal, hard to detect and cheap to make, the militants place them everywhere. The result on the Kurdish side — everything slows down.
