Sinjar

A Peshmerga commander based in Sinjar in northern Iraq has said the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is maintaining its presence in Iraq's Sinjar region despite Turkey's calls for its evacuation, state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on March 19 signaled a military operation into the Iraqi town of Sinjar, vowing that Turkey “can enter one night suddenly.”

Kurdish activists claim Turkey is building up its military forces in northern Syria for an assault on the Kurdish held district of Afrin, a development that could cause serious setbacks in the ongoing American-backed operation to liberate the defacto capital of ISIS, Raqqa.

The Turkish military "retaliated" to a rocket attack on a Turkish border post in the province of Şanlıurfa from areas controlled by the Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) in Syria on April 28, the army said, killing 11 militants. 

Rival Kurdish groups, the Peshmerga Rojava and a local affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), engaged in deadly clashes in Iraq's northwestern Sinjar region on March 3, two Kurdish security sources said.

Iraqi police on April 19 unearthed two mass graves in the western city of Ramadi, with bodies of about 40 people killed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants during the militant Sunni group's reign of terror in the city, officials said.

Iraqi forces have found more than 40 bodies, including those of women and children, in a mass grave in the city of Ramadi west of Baghdad, which they recently retook from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants, officials said.

The town of Sinjar has become a ghost town since the departure of Islamic State and Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants in early November.

Kurdish forces launched an offensive on Nov. 12 to retake the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar from ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) militants who overran it more than a year ago, killing and enslaving thousands of its Yazidi residents and triggering U.S.-led air strikes.

The U.S.-led coalition conducted 12 air strikes against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants in Syria on Dec. 22 and 10 strikes Iraq, the U.S. military said in a statement.