Shia liberators hand back Yazidi land divided and ruined, by Richard Spencer.

Three years ago, thousands of men were lined up along roadsides in Yazidi villages and slaughtered by Islamic State fighters with Kalashnikovs. Their wives and daughters were herded on to trucks and sold as sex slaves.

Thousands escaped up Mount Sinjar, where a rescue operation ensued under the world’s baffled gaze. Who were these people? How had Iraq come to this?

Genocide was narrowly averted, and in the past five days a dark chapter in the history of a colourful and abused minority has come to an end with the recapture from Islamic State of the last of their villages. …

The Yazidis’ homeland, though, is empty, smashed and divided. The Badr Corps is part of the Hashd al-Shaabi, or Popular Mobilisation Units, which control villages south of Mount Sinjar. The north is held by forces loyal to the Kurdistan Autonomous Region. Northwest is the PKK/PYD, the Kurdish alliance of northern Syria and southeastern Turkey, hated by Ankara but backed by the US. It was the PKK/PYD that came across the Syrian border and led them off the mountain.

hat-tip Stephen Neil