From Iraqi mountaintop, a fierce battle to free IS-held town

In this Sunday, Dec. 21, 2014 file photo, Yazidi fighters gather on the summit of Mount Sinjar as they head to battle Islamic State militants, in Iraq. The Islamic State group swept into Sinjar town and surrounding villages in early August, part of their blitzkrieg across northern Iraq. The advance of the extremists struck particular fear here. Much of the population come from the minority Yazidi religious community, a tiny sect that the Sunni Muslim radicals consider heretics. Hundreds were killed. Hundreds of Yazidi women and girls were taken captive by the militants, turned into sex slaves or forcibly "married" to IS supporters in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Dalton Bennett, File) In this Sunday, Dec. 21, 2014 file photo, Yazidi fighters gather on the summit of Mount Sinjar as they head to battle Islamic State militants, in Iraq. The Islamic State group swept into Sinjar town and surrounding villages in early August, part of their blitzkrieg across northern Iraq. The advance of the extremists struck particular fear here. Much of the population come from the minority Yazidi religious community, a tiny sect that the Sunni Muslim radicals consider heretics. Hundreds were killed. Hundreds of Yazidi women and girls were taken captive by the militants, turned into sex slaves or forcibly "married" to IS supporters in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Dalton Bennett, File)

By Associated Press December 23, 2014 5 min read

MOUNT SINJAR, Iraq (AP) – The road to the battlefront plunges straight down the steep face of Mount Sinjar, whipped by a fierce wind. It is littered with trucks and cars that couldn’t get up that incline, abandoned by their owners months ago as they fled the rampage of Islamic State group extremists.

Clothes lie piled on the side of the road, left behind by fleeing families unable to carry them.

Over the past week, Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters have descended the mountain, battling to liberate the town of Sinjar, a tiny desert community in northern Iraq that the gunmen overran in August, massacring and enslaving hundreds of its residents.

An Associated Press correspondent was with the Kurds. This is his report.

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