Iraqi Kurdish leader Massud Barzani hailed victories over the terrorist group ISIL during a visit on Sunday to Mount Sinjar, which had been besieged by the militants for months.

Iraqi Kurdish leader Massud Barzani hailed victories over the terrorist group ISIL during a visit on Sunday to Mount Sinjar, which had been besieged by the militants for months.

Thousands of the autonomous Kurdish region's peshmerga fighters launched a major operation on Wednesday which broke the second ISIl siege of Mount Sinjar this year.

The operation threatens the links between ISIL stronghold in Iraq, Mosul city, and territory the terrorist group controls in neighboring Syria.

"During the past 48 hours, the peshmerga opened two main routes to Mount Sinjar," Barzani said, adding that "we did not expect to achieve all these victories."

In addition to breaking through to the mountain, "a large part of the centre of the town of Sinjar was also liberated," he said, referring to an area to the mountain's south.

The Kurdish regional president also said the peshmerga might participate in an operation to retake Mosul itself.

"We will take part if the Iraqi government asks us, and of course we will have our conditions," he said, without specifying what they would be.

ISIL launched a sweeping militant offensive that has overrun swathes in Iraq since June, presenting an existential threat to the country's Kurdish region.
Barzani also said: "We will not leave an inch of the land of Kurdistan for (IS), and we will strike (IS) in any place it is located."

Tens of thousands of members of the Yazidi religious minority were trapped by ISIL on the mountain for days in the searing August heat in a first siege that sparked fears of genocide.

That siege was broken and many of the civilians evacuated, but others stayed behind and were again besieged by the Takfiri group in October.