Kurds celebrating Newroz in Istanbul. Photo: wiki commons.

Wall Street Journal – Iraqi Kurdish fighters drove Islamic State militants from the center of the northern city of Sinjar, rescuing hundreds of members of the minority Yazidi sect from a months long siege.

In one of the most successful counterattacks against the extremists since the group took over huge swaths of the country in June, about 1,500 Kurdish fighters known as Peshmerga, backed by Yazidi and Christian militia units, pushed into the city center on Sunday.

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