Aren Torikian
Thousands of people leaving their ancestral homeland. Women and
children being kidnapped, raped, and sold as slaves. Men slaughtered by
the dozens.
While this sounds like something from the Armenian Genocide, it is
going on in the world as I write. In Northern Iraq, where the
Babylonians and Assyrians once ruled vast empires, the Islamic State
(IS) has been waging a genocidal war against the defenseless Yazidi
people.
The IS, also known as ISIS or ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria/al-Sham/the Levant), is a descendant of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the
group the U.S. Army fought against for almost a decade. Taking advantage
of the Syrian Civil War, the IS swept through Syria in 2013, capturing
towns from Kurds, Syrian government forces, and other rebels. The IS
continued to grow this year, and expanded operations into Iraq. Coupled
with an Iraqi Army retreat, the IS’s advance led to gains just outside
of Baghdad, hundreds of miles from where it started its rampage. After
capturing Mosul in the north, Iraq’s second largest city, the IS started
to consolidate its gains. Ethnic Yazidis, fleeing from almost certain
death, collected on Mount Sinjar, and were soon surrounded by IS forces.
Facing starvation, heat stroke in the 100-degree Iraqi sun, and
massacres, the Yazidis became a sort of call to action.
