Kurdish rebels withdraw from Iraq’s Sinjar

BAGHDAD — A Kurdish rebel group said it would withdraw from the town of Sinjar in northern Iraq on Friday, following threats of attack from Turkey’s president who launched a series of airstrikes against suspected Kurdish rebel camps over the past week.

The Kurdistan Workers Party, also known as PKK, said it moved into Sinjar to protect the Yezidi people “from genocide” at the hands of the Islamic State group and were withdrawing “having reached that aim,” according to a statement.

PKK fighters moved into Sinjar — about 75 miles west of Mosul — in 2015 with an offensive led by Iraqi Kurdish fighters known as the Peshmerga and backed by the U.S.-led coalition.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to expand an ongoing military offensive in the Syrian town of Afrin into other Kurdish-held areas across northern Syria and even into neighboring Iraq.