Sinjar

Sinjar Arabic: سنجار‎‎ Kurdish: شەنگار/شەنگال /Şengar/Şingal
Yezidi Temple on Mount Sinjar, 2004.
Sinjar Location within Iraq
Coordinates:
Country	Iraq
Governorate	Nineveh
District	Sinjar District
Government
• Mayor	Êzîdî Mirza
Elevation	522 m (1,713 ft)
Population (2013)
• Total	88,023
Time zone	GMT (UTC+3)

This article is about the Iraqi town. 'Sinjar' may also refer to its eponymous district, mountains, or nearby plain.

Sinjar (Arabic: سنجار‎‎, Sinjar; Latin: Singara), also known as Shingal (Kurdish: Şengal/Şingal/Şingar/شەنگار/ شەنگال‎, Syriac: ܫܝܓܳܪ‎, Shiggor) and formerly Sanjár, is a town in Sinjar District, Nineveh Province, Iraq near Mount Sinjar. Its population in 2013 was estimated at 88,023. The town is mainly inhabited by Yazidis with Arab and Assyrian minorities.

The important Chermera temple (meaning 40 Men) is found at the highest peak of the Sinjar Mountains.

History

Main article: Singara

Singara in a detail from Peutinger's map, a medieval copy of a 4th-century Roman original.

File:Al-Jazira.svg

Peutinger's map of the inhabited world known to the Roman geographers depicts Singara as located west of the Trogoditi. Persi. (Latin: Troglodytae Persiae, "Persian troglodytes") who inhabited the territory around Mount Sinjar. By the medieval Arabs, Sinjar was reckoned as part of the province of Diyār Rabīʿa, the "abode of the Rabīʿa" tribe. The nearby Plain of Sanjár (now the Nineveh Plains) was the site of the determination of the degree by al-Khwārizmī and other astronomers during the reign of the caliph al-Mamun. The city boasted a famous Assyrian church in the 8th century.

In 2007, several explosions set off by al-Qaeda in Iraq killed hundreds of Yazidis in Sinjar.

Northern Iraq Offensive (2014)

In the course of their second Northern Iraq offensive in August 2014, ISIL conquered large areas of Nineveh province. Following the controversial withdrawal of the Kurdish Peshmerga they seized the city of Sinjar on 3 August. During the following days, IS militants perpetrated the Sinjar massacre, killing 2,000 Yazidi men and taking Yazidi women into slavery, leading to a mass exodus of Yazidi residents. According to a UN report, 5,000 Yazidi civilians were killed during ISIL's August offensive.

On the night of 20 December 2014, in the course of a first offensive to retake it from Islamic State militants, Kurdish forces pushed into the city of Sinjar. However, the Kurdish advance into the city was stalled, as they faced fierce resistance from the ISIL militants inside the southern half of the city.

On 13 November 2015, a day after launching a major second offensive, Kurdish forces and Yazidi militias backed by US airstrikes, entered the city and fully regained its control from ISIS. Following the recapture, in nearby hamlet of Solagh, east of Sinjar city, Kurdish forces found a mass grave with the remains of at least 78 Yazidi women from Kocho village believed to be executed by ISIL militants.

See also

• Persecution of Yazidis by ISIL
• Military intervention against ISIL
• American-led intervention in Iraq (2014–present)
• Ezidkhan