Iraqi forces captured the Yazidi Kurdish town of Sinjar from Kurdish forces on Tuesday as they pressed a campaign against Kurdish-held areas outside the autonomous region, paramilitary units said. 

The Popular Mobilisation Forces, made up largely of Iran-trained Shiite militias, said Kurdish forces had withdrawn from Sinjar without a fight.

The northwestern town is infamous as the site of one of the Islamic State group's worst atrocities when it killed thousands of Yazidi men and abducted hundreds of women as sex slaves in 2014, prompting an exodus into the mountains that helped trigger US intervention