ISIS and the Yazidis: How American Action Stopped a Genocide in Iraq

In 2014 the jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) were consolidating their control over a vast area of the Middle East. They singled out the Yazidis, adherents of an ancient monotheistic religion, for annihilation. Unlike Christians or Jews, who were seen as "people of the book," Yazidis were classified as pagans and therefore subject to extermination. The men were to be executed and the women and children enslaved. In August ISIS fighters attacked Sinjar, an Iraqi city inhabited mostly by Yazidis. Some 50,000 panic-stricken civilians fled to Mount Sinjar in 110° heat with no food or water. The ISIS militants quickly surrounded the mountain and after several days people began to die of exposure, exhaustion, and dehydration.

This is a history of the ISIS attack on the Yazidis and the American response, which represented the opening salvo in the war against ISIS. With a potential genocide looming, President Barack Obama ordered the U.S. military into action in order to save the thousands of men, women and children desperately calling for help from Mount Sinjar. While the U.S. Air Force dropped tons of food, water, and supplies to those stranded, U.S. Navy aircraft attacked ISIS positions at the base of the mountain. In the following months the United States assembled a coalition of nations which, along with Kurdish militias, eventually destroyed the Islamic State, saved the Yazidis and liberated millions from the brutal rule of ISIS.