December 2014 Sinjar offensive

Sinjar offensive
	Part of the War in Iraq and the American-led intervention in Iraq
	; Map of the Sinjar offensive
Date	17–22 December 2014 ; (6 days)
Location	Nineveh Governorate, Iraq
Result	Limited Kurdish gains: Kurdish forces secured the road from Zummar to Sinjar, but fail to take control of the whole of the Sinjar mountains; Kurdish forces capture a part of Sinjar city; A total of 1,295–3,000 square kilometers (500–1,158 square miles) of mostly desert and highway are recaptured by Kurdish forces; YPG and YBŞ cut the connection of ISIS of Raqqa and Mosul in Şengal.;
Belligerents
Iraqi Kurdistan Peshmerga; PKK HPG; YJA-Star; Rojava People's Protection Units; Women's Protection Units; YBŞ; MLKP Air support: United States; United Kingdom; ; Canada; Australia; Other Support: Germany;	Islamic State
Commanders and leaders
Masoud Barzani ; Murat Karayilan ; Sheikh Khairy Khedr †	Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (Leader); Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi (Replacement Military Chief)
Strength
8,000 Peshmerga soldiers 500-800 PKK Soldiers 3,400-4,500 YPG Soldiers	12,000 in Mosul province
Casualties and losses
unknown	~3,000+ killed (Peshmerga claim); 54 vehicles destroyed and 26 damaged

The Sinjar offensive was a combination of operations of Kurdish Peshmerga, PKK and People's Protection Units forces in December 2014, to recapture regions formerly lost to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in their August offensive.

In a six-day-long offensive, the PKK and Peshmerga took control over part of the city of Sinjar and part of the mountains which had been conquered by ISIL in August 2014, and expanded their offensive on to Tal Afar.

^ "MLKP fighter: We will be at the front until Sinjar is liberated". Firat News Agency. 29 December 2014. Archived from the original on 28 January 2015. Retrieved 11 February 2015.
^ "RAF air strikes in Iraq: December 2014". 22 January 2015.
^ Barbarani, Sofia (21 December 2014). "Jihadists in retreat as Iraqi Kurds retake Mt Sinjar".
^ "Operation IMPACT – Air Task Force-Iraq airstrikes". 25 November 2014. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
^ "Department of Defence – Air Force". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
^ "Australian air strikes support liberation of Mount Sinjar" (Press release). Department of Defence. 22 December 2014. Archived from the original on 21 July 2015. Retrieved 17 July 2015.
^ "Kurdish Sinjar offensive too late for some Yazidis". Al-Monitor. Archived from the original on 29 December 2014. Retrieved 22 December 2014.
^ Cite error: The named reference Masoud_Barzani was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Alessandria Masi (11 November 2014). "If ISIS Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Is Killed, Who Is Caliph Of The Islamic State Group?". International Business Times. Retrieved 29 June 2015.
^ "ISIL Casualties in Shingal Revealed". Bas News. Archived from the original on 31 December 2014. Retrieved 22 December 2014.