On 13 November Kurdish forces, including the PKK, and Yezidi fighters supported by US airstrikes liberated Sinjar, Ninevah province.
As with previous territorial advances against the Islamic State in recent weeks, the Islamic State withdrew its fighters from Sinjar and abandoned the town before Kurdish forces swept in. The loss of Sinjar was preceded by the recapture of a section of the Raqqa-Sinjar-Mosul highway.
However, the Islamic State has for several months re-routed most of its traffic between Mosul and the Syrian border via desert roads through the logistical hub of Ba'aj, about 30 km southwest of Sinjar.
On 15 November, France carried out 20 airstrikes on the Islamic State 'capital' of Raqqa, eastern Syria.
The proliferation of accessibility to artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities by state and non-state actors is having an increasing impact on information dissemination. Tate Nurkin assesses the potential impact of AI-related media manipulation and deepfakes on the security sphere
