Exclusive: Hunting ISIL with the PKK

When ISIL swept into northern Iraq last year, it left a trail of death, killing thousands of the Yazidi minority in Sinjar and stranding tens of thousands more in the mountains to die. Eventually, Kurdish peshmerga forces, aided by U.S. airstrikes, were credited with pushing back ISIL and saving the Yazidi. But another group of fighters deserves just as much credit for halting and preventing further slaughter: the PKK, the Kurdish Workers Party. Considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and most European countries, the group may be Sinjar’s best hope for defeating ISIL.