Northern Iraq offensive (August 2014)

Not to be confused with Northern Iraq offensive (June 2014).
Northern Iraq offensive (August 2014)
Part of the Iraqi insurgency (2011–present) and
the Military intervention against ISIL

Situation in Iraq, as of 4 May 2015:
  • Gray – Insurgent-controlled territory
  • Red – Iraqi-controlled territory
  • Yellow – Kurdish controlled territory
For a map of the current military situation in Iraq, see here.
Date1–19 August 2014 (2 weeks and 4 days)
LocationIraqi Nineveh and Kirkuk provinces
Result

Partial ISIL victory

  • ISIL captures Sinjar, the Mosul Dam, and seven other towns
  • ISIL besieges Kurdish Yazidi refugees on Mount Sinjar, but the siege is broken by Kurdish forces
  • Peshmerga and Iraqi special forces recapture the Mosul Dam, Mount Zartak and two towns
  • ISIL repels Iraqi military attack on Tikrit
Belligerents

Republic of Iraq

United States United States[3]


Kurdistan

Assyria Assyrian/Syriac forces

 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant[17]
Commanders and leaders

Haider al-Abadi
Ali Ghaidan
Ahmed Saadi [18]
Hamid Majid Mousa


    Masoud Barzani
    Jaafar Sheikh Mustafa
    Mustafa Said Qadir
    Murat Karayılan
    Cemil Bayık
    Salih Muslim
    Sipan Hamo
    Polat Can
    Gewargis Hanna

    Yonadam Kanna
    Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
    Strength

    25,000[19]–30,000[20] (two army divisions)
    10,000 federal police
    30,000 local police
    2,000 Iranian Quds Force[21]
    1,000 U.S. Troops[22]


    190,000–790,000[23]
    Islamic State: Around 100,000 fighters in Iraq (according to Iraqi Kurdistan Chief of Staff.)[24]
    Casualties and losses
    14 killed (Zumar only)[25] 100 killed, 160 wounded, 38 captured (Zumar only)[25][26]
    5,000 Yazidis killed[27] 5,000–7,000 Yazidis abducted[28]

    Between 1 and 15 August 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) expanded the northern Iraqi territories under their control. In the region north and west from Mosul, ISIL conquered Zumar, Sinjar, Wana, Mosul Dam, Tel Keppe and Kocho, in the regions south and east of Mosul the towns Bakhdida, Karamlish, Bartella and Makhmour.

    The offensive resulted in 100,000 Iraqi Christians driven from their homes, 200,000 Yazidi civilians driven from their homes in the city of Sinjar, 5,000 Yazidi men massacred of whom 500–2,000 in the Sinjar massacre, 5,000 Yazidi women enslaved, and a war of several countries against ISIL.

    50,000 of Sinjar's Yazidis had taken refuge in the adjacent Sinjar Mountains, where they lacked food, water and other basic necessities. 35,000 of them could be evacuated within several weeks, after intervention by the United States bombarding ISIL positions and efforts from Kurdish PKK, YPG and/or Peshmerga forces, and some of the ISIL-controlled territory was retaken.

    A subsequent Iraqi/Kurdish counter-attack recaptured the Mosul Dam and several other towns.

    Background

    In June 2014, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) had conquered significant territories in northern Iraq, including the cities of Mosul, Iraq’s second greatest town of over a million residents, and Tikrit, 200 km south of Mosul.
    While Iraqi federal military forces fled for the advancing ISIL troops, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters took over the control of a wide territory in northern Iraq outside the semi-autonomous Kurdish region from the federal Iraqi government.[29][25]

    ISIL conquests

    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 important supplier of electricity and water.[25][30] The Peshmerga fought off ISIL, killing 100 ISIL fighters, according to Kurdish sources, but also losing 14 Peshmerga fighters.[25]

    Sunday 3 August, ISIL, with heavy weaponry seized from the Iraqi federal army,[31][29] in the darkness of morning seized first the town of Zumar and then Sinjar (90 km southwest of Zumar),[30] and the surrounding Sinjar area.[32] ISIL routed from those towns the Kurdish peshmerga troops that since June more or less controlled the region.[30] A spokesman of citizens fled from Sinjar said, that 250 peshmerga in Sinjar had withdrawn from Sinjar in the night, leaving the civilians unprotected.[33]

    ISIL on 3 August also took control of the oil facility near Zumar.[25][30] Later that day, ISIL also captured the town of Wana between Zumar and Mosul.[30] There were conflicting reports about whether the Mosul Dam was still in Kurdish hands[30] or captured by ISIL.[34]

    ISIL surrounded the village of Kocho near the Sinjar Mountains, demanding its Yazidi residents to convert or die.[35]

    The United States began with direct supply of munitions to the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces and, with Iraq’s agreement, the shipment of weapons to the Kurds.[36] Also, Iraqi military helicopters dropped food and water for the Yazidis in the Sinjar Mountains.[32]

    ISIL on 6 August advanced up to 40 km southwest of Erbil, the capital of autonomous region Iraqi Kurdistan.[31]

    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), just north of Mosul, and Bartella, just east of Mosul.[37][38] Kurdish forces had retreated from Qaraqosh and surrounding area, which caused civilians to flee in panic.[39] The Chaldaic archbishop of Kirkuk and Sulaymaniyah, Joseph Thomas, stated that “all inhabitants” of those four cities were fleeing their town.[37]

    ISIL also captured the strategic[40] town of Makhmour,[41] between Mosul and Kirkuk, 20 miles from Erbil.[40] There were conflicting remarks—in one newspaper—as to whether ISIL had ‘seized’ the Mosul Dam or was making ‘efforts to seize’ it.[39] By this point, ISIL also overran other towns in northwest Iraq, chasing Kurdish Peshmerga troops away.[31][29]

    At this time, the U.S. started airdropping food and water for the Yazidi refugees stranded in the Sinjar Mountains.[42]

    On 8 August, the U.S. started to conduct airstrikes on ISIL, firstly around Erbil to stop ISIL’s advancemant 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.[29]

    On 10 August, encouraged by American airstrikes, Kurdish peshmerga forces retook the strategic towns Gwer and Makhmour, both about 20 miles from Erbil.[40] Meanwhile, the United Kingdom began airdropping humanitarian aid in northern Iraq.[43] American fighter jets bombarded areas in Makhmour, with ISIL fighters abandoning their positions, and Kurdish peshmerga together with PKK fighters and civilian volunteers from the area reclaiming it.[41] By 13 August, American air-strikes and Kurdish efforts from Iraq, Syria and Turkey had enabled the evacuation of some 35,000 of the 50,000 Yazidis stranded in the Sinjar Mountains.

    ISIL moved into the village Kocho, which they had held surrounded since 4 August, shot 80 Yazidi men dead with assault rifles, and abducted their wives and children.[35]

    Iraqi/Kurdish counter-attack

    Reclaiming Mosul Dam

    From 16 until 18 August, the U.S. conducted 35 air strikes against ISIL positions at the strategically critical Mosul Dam. That facilitated Kurdish and Iraqi forces to move swiftly and in good cooperation around Mosul Dam.[44][35]

    On the morning of 17 August, Kurdish forces, supported by U.S. and Iraqi air strikes, attacked the dam. They quickly captured the eastern part of the dam, but fighting continued.[45] By the evening, Kurdish and Iraqi forces had recaptured most of the facility, but were still in the process of removing mines and booby traps left by the insurgents. U.S. warplanes destroyed or damaged 19 insurgent vehicles and one checkpoint during the battle.[46]

    On 18 August, Kurdish peshmerga ground troops, with the help of Iraqi Special Forces, overran ISIL militants and reclaimed the Mosul Dam.[44]

    Iraqi move on Tikrit

    On the morning of 19 August, Iraqi government troops and allied militiamen launched an operation to retake the city of Tikrit from ISIL. The military push started early in the morning from the south and southwest of the city, which lies around 160 kilometres north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.[47][48]

    Demonstration in Paris 23 August 2014, to support Kurds and Yazidis threatened by ISIL

    However, by the afternoon, the offensive had been repelled by ISIL.[47] Also, the Iraqi military lost its positions in the southern area of the city it had captured a few weeks earlier.[49]

    Civilian casualties

    The Sinjar conquest, 3 August, was accompanied by a massacre of possibly 500–2,000 Yazidi men, the selling of women into slavery, and 200,000 civilians fleeing Sinjar, of whom 50,000 into the Sinjar Mountains.

    ISIL ordered the Yazidi minority in the area to convert to Islam, pay special taxes, or face death, which prompted tens of thousands to flee their homes,[31] not only in Sinjar but for example also 300 Yazidi families in the villages of Koja, Hatimiya and Qaboshi.[29]

    The UN reported in October 2014 that ISIL, “sweeping” through territory inhabited by Yazidis in August, had gunned down 5,000 Yazidi male civilians in a series of massacres and detained 5–7,000 Yazidi women to be sold as slaves or given to jihadists.[28]

    On 7 August, the UN reported that since 2 August 200,000 new refugees had been seeking sanctuary in the Kurdish north of Iraq from ISIL.[50]

    100,000 Christians, 25% of Iraq’s Christianity, fled Bakhdida (Qaraqosh) and neighbouring villages and towns in the Nineveh Governorate after ISIL’s invasion on 7 August, leaving all their property behind, many of them supposedly to Iraqi Kurdistan.[51] According to local officials, this August ISIL advance nearly purged northwestern Iraq of its Christian (Assyrian) population.[38]

    Public protests

    Protests and demonstrations were organized around the world, particularly in Paris, to support the Kurdish and Yazidi people.

    See also

    External links

    References

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    4. "U.S. Navy Strikes ISIS Targets in Iraq". USNI. 8 August 2014.
    5. "U.S. provides aid to Yezidis". USAF. 14 August 2014.
    6. Van Heuvelen, Ben. "Amid turmoil, Iraq's Kurdish region is laying foundation for independent state". Washington Post. Retrieved 13 June 2014. Kurdistan's military forces … have taken over many of the northernmost positions abandoned by the national army, significantly expanding the zone of Kurdish control... "In most places, we aren't bothering them [ISIS], and they aren't bothering us – or the civilians," said Lt. Gen. Shaukur Zibari, a pesh merga commander.
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