On the road to liberating Sinjar

--STORY CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES --

Kurdish peshmerga fighters on the road to Iraq's Sinjar mountain as they head into battle with Islamic State.

Fierce fighting on the way, in the effort to free hundreds trapped by IS.

The assault, backed by U.S. air strikes, ends the months-long ordeal of hundreds from Iraq's Yazidi religious minority, who have been under IS control since August.

Peshmerga soldiers enter bullet ridden homes

Graffiti covered walls declare "Islamic State will stay, God willing."

A kurdish fighter takes of picture of himself with an Islamic State fighter's corpse.

While the Kurds have yet to take back the actual town of Sinjar, the liberation of the Yazidis is a victory for the Kurds after Islamic State's routing of peshmerga fighters this summer.