the fight in sinjar will last a long time. the effort will really be to hold that area. and also had this doesn t answer what really are the big questions in the war against isis, which is how do you liberate the population centers. mosul has been under control for 18 months. raqqa for longer than that. there s no prospect of an offensive against those populations in any times for months or even years. so while we can say this it represents a stepping up of both u.s. and coalition activity against the islamic state, it s attacked the goal change, not a strategic shift in what experts agree is a stalemate. i want you to jump in on that. i want to take this a step further to your point as well. here we have the religious minority living in and around the area of sinjar. are also blaming the party for hanging them out to dry because
thousands of women became slaves. talk about that facet of this whole fight. i d like to address josh because he s partly right, but i don t completely agree with him. any place the iraqi government or u.s. are going to fight and where there s media it is quickly going to become a strategic count. sinjar is not strategically important. it is a tactical objective to get after mosul. that is the prize. there are several other lines of effort. there s fighting in ramadi to pull isis away from any reenforcement of other places. there s fight iing in the kurdi region. so all of these areas are contributing and for the first time since this campaign began, i think the iraqi government and kurdish government are forcing
bat toll retake the key city of sinjar. cnn cameras rolling again smack dab on the front lines embedded with peshmerga fighters. what s key here is this map. you see this piece here. this is the map in sinjar. so this is the red area you see here. that s the strategic town near the border there in recapturing would cut off the supply line of the strongholds of raqqa and mosul. but just as important as divide ing the isis call fate is saving the thousands of people, the thousands of religious minorities who live right there. and how could any of us forget this devastating video here that cnn shot this. this was zin yar where cnn witnessed the desperate minorities on the verge of slaughter. the children, the families climbing in. these helicopters scrambling on
itself. thousands of them, but they were met by substantial numbers of car bombs that were seized in their direction. but at the same time, those p h peshmerga were able to at times stop some of those car bombs from coming near them because they have a missile system which actually fired at those cars blowing them up in their tracks. a lot of resistance still in evidence in the city. isis have hundreds of fighters by one estimation. they may try to retain control over that area. it s vital they have that supply route. although i have to say you saw ek ka va tors on digging huge trenches and creating bedrooms along that road effectively cutting off traffic. so it seems quite quickly one small part of the goal. s are achieved, but the broader question of how to perge isis from that sprawl that is sinjar yet to be resolved. we saw this stage as who who
u.s.-led coalition air support are battling to retake the key city of sinjar. that s a city where residents have fled from isis. cnn capturing that moment in 2014 in august. dozens of civilians desperately scrambling onto a military chopper in order to escape the terror group. right now officials say peshmerga troops have managed to secure a number of villages in that area. they ve also taken control of an important stretch of highway used as an isis supply route into syria. cnn nick paton walsh is on the front lines outside of sinjar. he has more. reporter: just behind me, you can see the thick, black smoke that has been covering the center of sinjar since about this morning when the offensive began at first light. in the distance there s been pretty consistent exchanges of heavy machine gunfire. we re on the outskirts of sinjar because of the rules we agreed to when working with peshmerga in this imbed.