Kurdish fighters in Iraq struggle to hold gains against IS

FILE - In this Thursday Jan. 29, 2015 file photo, a Kurdish peshmerga fighter fires a weapon towards positions of the Islamic State group who are 500 meters or half a mile away, overlooking the strategic town of Sinjar, northern Iraq. While Islamic State fighters have been forced to retreat from Kobani, the strategic town on Syria’s border with Turkey, they appear far from beaten in northern Iraq. Along the Kurds’ shifting front lines, it’s a tenuous hold. Whichever side triumphs will determine whether Islamic State can use the main highway west to funnel weapons and reinforcements to their retreating comrades in Syria. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen, File) FILE - In this Thursday Jan. 29, 2015 file photo, a Kurdish peshmerga fighter fires a weapon towards positions of the Islamic State group who are 500 meters or half a mile away, overlooking the strategic town of Sinjar, northern Iraq. While Islamic State fighters have been forced to retreat from Kobani, the strategic town on Syria’s border with Turkey, they appear far from beaten in northern Iraq. Along the Kurds’ shifting front lines, it’s a tenuous hold. Whichever side triumphs will determine whether Islamic State can use the main highway west to funnel weapons and reinforcements to their retreating comrades in Syria. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen, File)

By Associated Press February 2, 2015 3 min read

SNUNY, Iraq (AP) – Only stray dogs and a dozen armed fighters walk the streets of Snuny, a ghost town at the base of Mount Sinjar where rapid military changes of fortune are written on the walls.

“Smoking is banned” has been scribbled in Arabic outside one cafe. A nearby building bears the warning: “Submit to the Islamic State, you infidels.”

Those messages don’t reflect the views of the new management. Today, flags representing various Kurdish political groups flap furiously in the wind over Snuny, claiming ownership of the town’s barren streets.

But all along the Kurds’ shifting front lines, it’s a tenuous hold sustained only with timely air support from the U.S.-led coalition. Questions remain whether the coalition-backed Kurds can secure strategic crossroads like Snuny and renew an offensive versus the Islamic State group, which controls a broad swath of northern Iraq from its base in Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul.

The Kurds retook Snuny from the Sunni militants last month, but a weeks-old battle has reached a point of stalemate on the other side of the mountain for militant-held Sinjar. To the southeast, the oil-rich city of Kirkuk remains at risk of Islamic State recapture.