Northern Iraq offensive (August 2014)

The offensive resulted in 200,000 Yazidi civilians and 100,000 Assyrians driven from their homes, 5,000 Yazidi men massacred, 5,000–7,000 Yazidi women enslaved, and a foreign military intervention against the Islamic State.


After the withdrawal of Iraqi federal forces from advancing Islamic state troops from many cities, and later the withdrawal of Kurdish Peshmerga fighters from many positions including the Qaraqosh and Sinjar, ^[32] 50,000 of Sinjar's Yazidis took refuge in the adjacent Sinjar Mountains, where they lacked food, water, and other necessities. While providing help and aid to refugees, an Iraqi helicopter crashed, killing the pilot and injuring several passengers, including an Iraqi member of parliament and a photographer on assignment for TIME. ^[33] 35,000 to 45,000 of them were evacuated within several weeks after the United States bombed ISIL positions, and the Iraqi armed forces, Kurdish People's Defence Forces, People's Protection Units, and Peshmerga forces opened a humanitarian corridor to enable their escape. Some ISIL-controlled territory was retaken; a subsequent Kurdish counter-attack recaptured the Mosul Dam and several other nearby towns.

Friday 1 August 2014, ISIL attacked a Peshmerga post in Zumar, 40 km northwest of Mosul, in the peshmerga-controlled zone of northern Iraq, and a nearby oil-winning facility and the nearby Mosul Dam, Iraq's largest dam and an important supplier of electricity and water.^[35][38] The Peshmerga fought off ISIL, killing 100 ISIL fighters, according to Kurdish sources, but also losing 14 Peshmerga fighters.^[35]


Sunday 3 August, ISIL, with heavy weaponry seized from the Iraqi federal army,^[36][39] in the darkness of morning seized first the town of Zumar and then Sinjar (90 km southwest of Zumar),^[38] and the surrounding Sinjar area.^[40] ISIL routed from those towns the Kurdish peshmerga troops that since June more or less controlled the region.^[38] A spokesman of citizens who fled from Sinjar said, that 250 peshmerga in Sinjar had withdrawn from Sinjar in the night, leaving the civilians unprotected.^[41]


ISIL on 3 August also took control of the oil facility in the Zumar subdistrict.^[35][38] Later that day, ISIL also captured the town of Wana between Zumar and Mosul.^[38] There were conflicting reports about whether the Mosul Dam was still in Kurdish hands^[38] or captured by ISIL.^[42]


ISIL surrounded the village of Kocho near the Sinjar Mountains, demanding its Yazidi residents to convert or die.^[43]


ISIL on 6 August advanced up to 40 km southwest of Erbil, the capital of autonomous region Kurdistan Region.^[39]


On 7 August, ISIL took control of Qaraqosh (or Bakhdida), the largest Christian town of Iraq, 30 km southeast of Mosul and 60 km west of Erbil, Karamlish, 5 km from Qaraqosh, Tal Keif (Tel Keppe), Batnaya, just north of Mosul, and Bartella, just east of Mosul.^[44][45] Kurdish forces had retreated from Qaraqosh and surrounding area, which caused civilians to flee in panic.^[46] The Chaldaic archbishop of Kirkuk and Sulaymaniyah, Joseph Thomas, stated that "all inhabitants" of those four cities were fleeing their town.^[44]


ISIL also captured the strategic^[47] town of Makhmour in the Battle of Makhmour,^[48] between Mosul and Kirkuk, 20 miles from Erbil.^[47] There were conflicting remarks—in one newspaper—as to whether ISIL had 'seized' the Mosul Dam or was making 'efforts to seize' it.^[46] That week, ISIL also overran other towns in northwest Iraq, chasing Kurdish Peshmerga troops away.^[36][39]


At this time, the U.S. started airdropping food and water for the Yazidi refugees stranded in the Sinjar Mountains.^[49]


On 8 August, the U.S. started to conduct airstrikes on ISIL, first west of Erbil to stop ISIL's advance on the city. Starting on 9 August, airstrikes also took place around the Sinjar Mountains. By this time, ISIL had also seized the Mosul Dam, 40 km northwest of Mosul on the Tigris river.^[36]