The War in Iraq was an armed conflict between

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

and its allies and the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) which began in 2013 and ended in December 2017. Following December 2013, the

insurgency An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority waged by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare from primarily rural base areas. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric nature: small irr ...

escalated into full-scale guerrilla warfare following clashes in the cities of

Ramadi Ramadi ( ar, ٱلرَّمَادِي ''Ar-Ramādī''; also formerly rendered as ''Rumadiyah'' or ''Rumadiya'') is a city in central Iraq, about west of Baghdad and west of Fallujah. It is the capital and largest city of Al Anbar Governorate w ...

and Fallujah in parts of western Iraq, and culminated in the Islamic State offensive into Iraq in June 2014, which lead to the capture of the cities of Mosul, Tikrit and other cities in western and northern Iraq by the Islamic State. Between 4–9 June 2014, the city of Mosul was attacked and later fell; following this, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called for a national

state of emergency A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to be able to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state du ...

on 10 June. However, despite the security crisis, Iraq's parliament did not allow Maliki to declare a state of emergency; many legislators boycotted the session because they opposed expanding the prime minister's powers. Ali Ghaidan, a former military commander in Mosul, accused al-Maliki of being the one who issued the order to withdraw from the city of Mosul. At its height, ISIL held 56,000 square kilometers of Iraqi territory, containing 4.5 million citizens. The war resulted in the forced resignation of Iraqi

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

Nouri al-Maliki in 2014, as well as an airstrike campaign by the United States and a dozen other countries to back Iraq, participation of American and Canadian troops (predominantly special forces) in ground combat operations, a $3.5 billion U.S.-led program to rearm the Iraqi Security Forces, a U.S.-led training program that provided training to nearly 200,000 Iraqi soldiers and police, the participation of Iranian troops including armored and air elements, and military and logistical aid provided to Iraq by Russia. On 9 December 2017, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced victory over ISIS, though others warned that they expected ISIS to fight on via an insurgency, and by other means. ISIL switched to guerrilla "hit and run" tactics in an effort to undermine the Iraqi government's effort to eradicate them. This conflict is interpreted by some in Iraq as a spillover of the Syrian Civil War. Other Iraqis and observers see it mainly as a culmination of long-running local sectarianism, exacerbated by the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011, the subsequent increase in anti-Sunni sectarianism under former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and the ensuing bloody crack-down on the 2012–2013 Sunni protests.

Belligerents

The

Iraqi Armed Forces The Iraqi Armed Forces ( ar, القوات المسلحة العراقية romanized: ''Al-Quwwat Al-Musallahah Al-Iraqiyyah'') ( Kurdish: هێزە چەکدارەکانی عێراق) are the military forces of the Republic of Iraq. They consist ...

, Kurdish Peshmerga and various Turkmen

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

Assyrian Assyrian may refer to: * Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia. * Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire. ** Early Assyrian Period ** Old Assyrian Period ** Middle Assyrian Empire ** Neo-Assyrian Empire * Assyri ...

Christian, Yezidi, Shabaki, and Armenian Christian forces faced the

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic ter ...

. Although some 35,000 Kurdish Peshmerga were incorporated into the Iraqi Armed Forces, most Peshmerga forces operated under the command of the President of Iraqi Kurdistan in the Kurdish autonomous region of

forces included: Nineveh Plain Protection Units,John Burger for Aletia. December 4, 201
Christians in Iraq Forming Militia to Defend, and Possibly Retake, Ancestral Lands
Nineveh Plain Forces, Babylon Brigades, Kataib Rouh Allah Issa Ibn Miriam,

Qaraqosh Protection Committee The Qaraqosh Protection Committee (also known as the Nineveh Plains Security Forces) is an armed militia formed by Assyrians living in the city of Bakhdida, in Ninawa Governorate of Iraq. The committee, formed in 2004, was organized through local ...

and Dwekh Nawsha.

Timeline

2014

In the course of their Anbar campaign, ISIL militants and their baathist allies seized at least 70% of Al Anbar Governorate by June 2014, including the cities of Fallujah, Al Qaim, and half of the provincial capital of

. ISIL forces also infiltrated Abu Ghraib in Baghdad Governorate. In early June 2014, following further large-scale offensives in Iraq, ISIL and their allies seized control of Mosul, the second most populous city in Iraq, the nearby town of

Tal Afar Tal Afar ( ar, تَلْعَفَر, Talʿafar, ) is a city in the Nineveh Governorate of northwestern Iraq, located 63 km (39 mi) west of Mosul, 52 km (32 mi) east of SinjarNineveh Governorate. ISIL also captured parts of Kirkuk and Diyala Governorates and Tikrit, the administrative center of the Salahuddin Governorate, with the ultimate goal of capturing

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...

, the Iraqi capital. ISIL was believed to have only 2,000–3,000 fighters up until the Mosul campaign, but during that campaign, it became evident that this number was a gross underestimate. There were also reports that the number of Sunni groups in Iraq that were opposed to the predominantly Shia government had joined ISIL, thus bolstering the group numbers. However, the

Kurds ug:كۇردلار Kurds ( ku, کورد ,Kurd, italic=yes, rtl=yes) or Kurdish people are an Iranian peoples, Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Ir ...

—who are mostly Sunnis—in the northeast of Iraq, were unwilling to be drawn into the conflict, and there were clashes in the area between ISIL and the Kurdish Peshmerga. On 12 June 2014 ISIL killed 1,700 unarmed Iraqi Air Force cadets who were caught trying to flee to safety and released many images of mass executions via its Twitter feed and various websites. Territorial control of the ISIS ve

In late June, ISIL militants captured two key crossings in Anbar, a day after seizing the border crossing at Al-Qaim. According to analysts, capturing these crossings could aid ISIL in transporting weapons and equipment to different battlefields. Two days later, the Syrian Air Force bombed ISIL positions in Iraq near the Al-Qaim border post. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki stated: "There was no coordination involved, but we welcome this action. We welcome any Syrian strike against Isis because this group targets both Iraq and Syria." At this point, ''

The Jerusalem Post ''The Jerusalem Post'' is a broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, founded in 1932 during the British Mandate of Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''The Palestine Post''. In 1950, it changed its name to ''The Jerusalem Post''. In 2004, the pap ...

'' reported that the Obama administration had requested US$500 million from the US Congress to use in the training and arming of "moderate" Syrian rebels fighting against the Syrian government, in order to counter the growing threat posed by ISIL in Syria and Iraq. On 29 June, ISIL announced the establishment of a new

caliphate A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...

. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was appointed its

caliph A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...

, and group formally changed its name to the Islamic State. Four days later, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed caliph of the new Islamic State, said that Muslims should unite to capture

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

in order to "own the world." He called on Muslims all over the world to unite behind him as their leader. On 24 July, ISIL blew up the Mosque and tomb of the Prophet Yunus (Jonah) in Mosul, with no reported casualties. Residents in the area said that ISIL had erased a piece of Iraqi heritage. Jonah's tomb was an important holy site in the Jewish heritage as well. A few days later, ISIL also blew up the Nabi Shiyt (Prophet Seth) shrine in Mosul. Sami al-Massoudi, deputy head of the

Shia Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, mos ...

endowment agency which oversees holy sites, confirmed the destruction and added that ISIL had taken artifacts from the shrine to an unknown location. In an August offensive, ISIL captured Sinjar and a number of other towns in the north of the country. Almost 200,000 civilians, mostly Yazidis, managed to flee from the fighting in Sinjar city,Sunni Extremists in Iraq Seize 3 Towns From Kurds and Threaten Major Dam
. ''New York Times'', 3 August 2014. Retrieved 7 March 2015. about 50,000 of them fled into the Sinjar Mountains, where they were trapped without food, water or medical care, facing starvation and dehydration. They had been threatened with death if they refused conversion to Islam. A UN representative said that "a humanitarian tragedy is unfolding in Sinjar." In addition, during this latest offensive, the Islamic State advanced to within 30 km of the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Erbil in northern Iraq. Prompted by the siege and killings of the Yazidis, on 7 August, President Obama authorized targeted airstrikes in Iraq against ISIL, along with airdrops of aid. The UK offered the US assistance with surveillance and refueling, and planned humanitarian airdrops to Iraqi refugees. The US asserted that the systematic destruction of the Yazidi people by the Islamic State was genocide. The Arab League also accused the Islamic State of committing crimes against humanity. On 13 August, US airstrikes and Kurdish ground forces broke the ISIL siege of Mount Sinjar. Also, five days later, Kurdish Peshmerga ground troops, with the help of Iraqi Special Forces and the US air campaign, overran ISIL militants and reclaimed the Mosul Dam. On 31 August, the United States, France, United Kingdom and Australia began humanitarian aid drops of food, water and medical supplies to help prevent a potential massacre against the Shia Turkmen minority in Amirli. The US also carried out air strikes on ISIL positions around and near Amirli. Iraqi officials stated that they had reached Amirli and broken the siege and that the military was fighting to clear the areas around the town. This is known to be the first major turning point against ISIL in

. In September, the United States sent an additional 250 troops to protect American personnel, while the first engagement of the British military against ISIL targets took place when a British

Panavia Tornado The Panavia Tornado is a family of twin-engine, variable-sweep wing multirole combat aircraft, jointly developed and manufactured by Italy, the United Kingdom and West Germany. There are three primary Tornado variants: the Tornado IDS (inte ...

jet dropped a

Paveway IV Paveway IV is a dual mode GPS/ INS and laser-guided bomb manufactured by Raytheon UK (formerly Raytheon Systems Limited). It is the latest iteration of the Paveway series. The weapon is a guidance kit based on the existing Enhanced Paveway II En ...

bomb on "a heavy weapon position" operated by ISIL in northwest Iraq at the end of the month. In addition, Australia offered 200 special forces to the Kurds and 600 Australian troops landed in the UAE. The following month, Australia authorized its special forces troops to go to Iraq as part of the anti-ISIL coalition that day, as well as authorizing airstrikes. In mid-October ISIL forces captured the city of Hīt after the 300-strong Iraqi Army garrison abandoned and set fire to its local base and supplies. As a result, an estimated 180,000 civilians (including refugees of the previous Anbar offensive) attempted to flee the area. Later that month,

Operation Ashura Liberation of Jurf Al Sakhar, codenamed Operation Ashura ( ar, عملية عاشوراء), was a two-day military operation by Iraqi government forces and Iranian-backed PMU forces beginning on 24 October 2014, aimed at retaking the strategic cit ...

was launched by Iraqi forces and Iranian-backed Shia militias, scoring a major victory and retaking the strategic town of Jurf al-Sakhar near Baghdad, and securing the way for millions of Shia pilgrims who were going to Karbala and Najaf On the Day of Ashura. Kurdish forces, meanwhile, recaptured

Zummar Zummar ( ar, زمار), also spelled Zemar or Zumar, is both the name of an Iraqi subdistrict located in north Nineveh Governorate and of its seat, the town of Zummar. The population is a mix of Arabs and Kurds, most of them work in agricultur ...

. On 21 October, ISIL seized terrain north of the Sinjar Mountains, thus cutting the area's escape route to Kurdish areas. The Yazidi militias then withdrew from there into the mountains, where the number of Yazidi civilian refugees was estimated at 2,000–7,000. The mountains had once again been partially surrounded by ISIL. In mid-November, Iraqi forces retook control of most of the strategic city Baiji from the Islamic State and broke the siege of the nearby oil refinery. However, by the following month, ISIL recaptured Baiji and reestablished the siege of the refinery. On 17 December, Peshmerga forces, backed by 50 US-led coalition airstrikes on ISIL positions, launched an offensive to liberate Sinjar and to break the partial ISIL siege of the Sinjar Mountains. In less than two days, the siege was broken. After ISIL forces retreated, Kurdish fighters were initially faced with the clearing out mines around the area, but quickly opened a land corridor to those mountains, enabling Yazidis to be evacuated. The operation left 100 ISIL fighters dead. Later on 21 December, Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters south of the mountain range reached Peshmerga lines, thus linking their two fronts. The next day, the YPG broke through ISIL lines, thus opening a corridor from

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

to the town of Sinjar. By the evening, the Peshmerga took control of much of Sinjar.

2015

In late January, Iraqi forces recaptured the entire province of Diyala from the Islamic State. Furthermore, 21 January saw the launching of the Mosul offensive (2015) in which Peshmerga forces captured large amount of territory surrounding Mosul. On 2 March, the Second Battle of Tikrit began and after more than a month of hard fighting, government troops and pro-Iranian Shiite militias overcame ISIL fighters and took Tikrit. Shia groups claimed that they had killed Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri but this was later debunked This success was off-set in late May, by ISIL's capture of the provincial capital of Ramadi in Anbar Governorate. Captured DAESH fighter and Iraqi defenders (2)

Captured DAESH fighter and Iraqi defenders (2)

On 17 July, a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb in a crowded marketplace in the city of Khan Bani Saad during Eid al-Fitr celebrations, killing 120–130 people and injuring 130 more. Twenty more people were reported missing since the bombing. On 13 August, a suicide bomber detonated a truck bomb in a crowded marketplace in Sadr City,

, killing at least 75 people and injuring 212 more. On 27 August, a suicide bomber assassinated General Abdel Rahman Abu Ragheef, deputy commander of operations in the province of Anbar, and Brigadier Safeen Abdel Majeed, a divisional commander. ISIL forces lost Sinjar on November 13 to Kurdish forces. During 16–17 December, ISIL forces mounted a major offensive north-east of Mosul against Kurdish position but were repelled. Starting December 22, the Iraqi Army began a campaign to recapture

. On December 28, Iraq declared Ramadi liberated from ISIL forces and under the control of the Iraqi government.

2016

Iraqi forces regained control of Hīt and

Ar-Rutbah Ar-Rutbah ( ar, الرطبة ''ar-Ruṭba'', also Romanized ''Rutba'', ''Rutbah'') is an Iraqi town in western Al Anbar province, completely inhabited with Sunni Muslims. The population is approximately 28,400. It occupies a strategic location on t ...

in offensive operations in 2016 and then Fallujah as well in the Third Battle of Fallujah ending in June 2016. On 16 October 2016, the Battle of Mosul began.

2017

The 2017 Mosul massacre was the largest single death toll inflicted by a coalition air strike since the

2003 invasion of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including ...

by U.S. forces. In April, the Iraqi Army, with the help of the Popular Mobilization Forces, launched the Western Nineveh offensive to capture territory west of Mosul. The PMU were able to reach the Iraq–Syria border, meeting up with territory controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces. In May, a member from the Canadian Special Forces Joint Task Force 2 disrupted a Daesh attack on Iraqi security forces. The target was successfully hit at 3,540 metres from a high-rise, setting the world's longest recorded sniper kill. On 10 July, Iraqi Army forces captured Mosul. Following the victory in Mosul, the Iraqi Army launched operations to sweep what remained of ISIL-controlled territory in the country. The Tal Afar offensive was launched on 20 August and completed by 31 August with a major Iraqi Army victory. The Hawija offensive started in late September and was complete by 5 October. In September 2017, a

United Nations Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, ...

Resolution was adopted to "Reaffirm its respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity, independence and unity of Iraq". Following the adoption of the resolution, a UN investigative team was established to document human rights violations and serious crimes committed by

ISIS Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kin ...

in Iraq. However, by the end of 2018, the team had not yet launched its investigation. On 25 September, Iraqi Kurdistan held an unofficial independence referendum. Turnout was reported to be 72.83% with 92.73% voting in favor of independence from Iraq. In response to the referendum, the Iraqi Army launched a short offensive on 15 October against Iraqi Kurdistan to recapture the disputed city of Kirkuk with the help of the Talabani family and some PUK members. Following the capture of Kirkuk and Sinjar, Masoud Barzani announced his intentions to step down as President of Iraqi Kurdistan, effective 1 November, after being in power for 12 years. His gamble of pushing through with the unofficial referendum ended with the disputed territories being recaptured by Iraq and with the Kurdish statebuilding project being left abandoned. Iraq captured ISIL's last two strongholds of Al-Qa'im and Rawah on 17 November. After the Iraqi army had captured the last ISIL-held areas in the al-Jazira desert bordering Syria, on 9 December the prime minister announced the end of the war. A victory parade was held "in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone" on the following day, and Prime Minister al-Abadi declared that 10 December would become a new annual holiday for Iraq. However, other government officials and sources, such as the

Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Governmen ...

, British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, and

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was est ...

, warned that they expected ISIL to fight on by other means, such as guerilla warfare and

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

. Despite the victory announcements, ISIL retained its natural hideouts in

Wadi Hauran Wadi Hauran (also Wadi Houran, Wādī Ḩawrān ar, وادي حوران) is the longest Wadi in Iraq. Located in Al Anbar Governorate west of Iraq, at Latitude33.0333°, Longitude40.2500�Wādī Ḩawrānis roughly midway between Damascus and Bag ...

Aftermath

Although the war was declared over, ISIL continued a lower-scale

. Months of relative calm in Baghdad ended with over 27 people killed by suicide bombers over a period of 3 days in mid-January 2018. Although there were no immediate claims of responsibility, it was reported that such attacks had usually been the work of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) in the past, and that elements of the group were still active north of the city despite the government's claim of victory in December 2017. On Wednesday January 17, two days after the two suicide bombings on January 15, IS "claimed responsibility for the twin suicide bombings in Baghdad this week", though the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' suggested that the delay, and a number of errors in the claim, may show that the group's "media apparatus has been disrupted". ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

'' meanwhile reported on 16 January that the Iraqi Army had launched an operation to oust ISIL from the Bosifian islands, a stronghold being used as a militant hideout. The hideout, located in Saladin governorate, was discovered in December and is one of the 10 patches where the group is still active. About 100 militants were killed by Iraqi forces in the past one week. An operation was launched on 7 February to hunt down the remnants of ISIL in Saladin Governorate, as well as members of Ansar al-Sunna and the " White Flags", a new insurgent group reportedly consisting of former ISIL members and Kurdish mafia groups. Qaratapa self-defense group

Despite these efforts, ISIL continued to hold out in the western desert and wage an insurgency campaign against government forces in northern Iraq by mid-2018, most notably in Diyala and Kirkuk Governorates. As the military could not protect the isolated hinterland of these regions, ISIL forces would repeatedly attack remote villages, defeating their self-defense groups, kidnap people for ransom and forcing local civilians to flee. Sometimes, ISIL fighters would even openly flaunt their presence, placing their flag at well visible points and driving around with motorcycles, cars, and technicals. The group also targeted followers of Yarsanism (called Kaka'i in Iraq) around Kirkuk, whom the militants consider unbelievers. In course of one notable attack, ISIL fighters raided a house in a village to the south of Shirqat on 11 March 2018, killing a tribal sheikh who led a Sunni militia against the group as well as three others. In July 2018, the Iraqi Army, Popular Mobilization Forces and Peshmerga launched Operation "Vengeance for the Martyrs" to destroy ISIL remnants in Diyala and Kirkuk Governorates, supported by the Iraqi Air Force and US-led coalition. By April 2018, hundreds of ISIL fighters were still located in the Anbar desert. Following ISIL's defeat, the group has regardless continued an insurgency. However they have been greatly weakened and violence in Iraq has been sharply reduced in 2018. Only 95 people lost their lives during the month of May, the lowest figure in 10 years. A total of 7,366 of ISIL members have returned to their home countries, where some countries also agreed to bring unaccompanied children back. According to a study by the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the Legislature, legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven Institutions of the European Union, institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and in ...

in May 2018, around 30% of Western European ISIL members have returned to their countries, in which they would face a criminal investigation and risk assessment. In May 2019, three ISIL Frenchmen named Kevin Gonot, Leonard Lopez and Salim Machou, were sentenced to death by an Iraqi court.

Human rights

Nearly 19,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq in ISIL-linked violence between January 2014 and October 2015. ISIL executed up to 1,700 Shia Iraqi Air Force cadets from

Camp Speicher Majid al Tamimi Airbase, officially known as the Tikrit Air Academy and formerly as FOB Speicher, COB Speicher, and Al Sahra Airfield (under Saddam Hussein) is an air installation near Tikrit in northern Iraq. The installation is approximately 17 ...

near Tikrit on 12 June 2014. The genocide of Yazidis by ISIL has led to the expulsion, flight and effective exile of the Yazidi people from their ancestral lands in northern Iraq. According to '' Newsweek'', Amnesty International claimed that "Iraqi government forces and paramilitary militias have tortured, arbitrarily detained, forcibly disappeared and executed thousands of civilians who have fled the rule of the Islamic State militant group". The report, titled ''Punished for Daesh's crimes, alleges that thousands of Sunni men and boys have been forcibly disappeared by Iraqi government forces and militias.

Notes

References

External links

*
Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart
by Scott Anderson, ''

'' (August 11, 2016) {{DEFAULTSORT:Iraqi Civil War (2014-2017) Articles containing video clips Civil wars post-1945 2010s civil wars 2010s in Iraq 2010s in Iraqi Kurdistan 2010s conflicts Arab Winter in Iraq Civil wars in Iraq Spillover of the Syrian civil war Wars involving the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Wars involving the Peshmerga Wars involving the Popular Mobilization Forces Islamic terrorism Religion-based civil wars Wars involving Iraq