The ancient northern Iraqi town of Sinjar emptied Sunday, with thousands of people fleeing on foot as Sunni extremist militants made their first significant punches through the defenses of overstretched Kurdish forces. Sinjar is an ancestral home of the long-persecuted Yazidi religious sect, which the Islamic State has branded as devil worshipers, and few of its residents stayed to find out what was planned for them when the group’s militants entered Sunday. Until Sunday, Sinjar had been protected by Kurdish fighters known as pesh merga, but officials from the semi-autonomous northern region have been warning for weeks that they are poorly equipped to sustain the defense of the nearly 650-mile border they now share with the militants. The town of Wana also fell Sunday, putting the Islamic State within striking distance of Mosul’s hydroelectric dam, the largest in the country. After nearly two months of skirmishes, it […]