Ethnic violence and religious persecution linked to ISIS includes organised actions in territory controlled by the movement in their "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (20132019) as well as violence they actively incite in territory they do not control. The main religious groups they have targeted are Shia Muslims and Christians, and Yazidis. Their persecution of Yazidis was genocidal.
Genocides
The movement has been accused of committing genocide against multiple ethnic and religious groups.
Yazidi genocide
The Yazidi genocide also known as the 74th firman by Yazidis, was perpetrated by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2017. It was characterized by massacres, genocidal rape, and forced conversions to Islam. The Yazidis are a Kurdish-speaking people who are indigenous to Kurdistan who practice Yazidism, a monotheistic Iranian ethnoreligion derived from the Indo-Iranian tradition.
Over a period of three years, Islamic State militants trafficked thousands of Yazidi women and girls and killed thousands of Yazidi men. The United Nations reported that the Islamic State killed about 5,000 Yazidis and trafficked about 10,800 Yazidi women and girls in a "forced conversion campaign" throughout Iraq. By 2015, upwards of 71% of the global Yazidi population was displaced by the genocide, with most Yazidi refugees having fled to Iraq's Kurdistan Region and Syria's Rojava. The persecution of Yazidis, along with other religious minorities, took place after the Islamic State's Northern Iraq offensive of June 2014.
Amid numerous atrocities committed by the Islamic State, the Yazidi genocide attracted international attention and prompted the United States to establish CJTF–OIR, a military coalition consisting of many Western countries and Turkey, Morocco, and Jordan. Additionally, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia made emergency airdrops to support Yazidi refugees who were trapped in the Sinjar Mountains due to the Islamic State's Northern Iraq offensive of August 2014. During the Sinjar massacre, in which the Islamic State killed and abducted thousands of trapped Yazidis, the United States and the United Kingdom began carrying out airstrikes on the advancing Islamic State militants, while the People's Defense Units and the Kurdistan Workers' Party jointly formed a humanitarian corridor to evacuate the rest of the Yazidi refugees from the Sinjar Mountains.
The United Nations and several other organizations, including the Council of Europe and the European Union, have designated the anti-Yazidi campaign by the Islamic State as a genocide, as have the United States, Canada, Armenia, and Iraq.
Iraqi Turkmen genocide
Destruction of cultural heritage
Since 2014, the Islamic State (IS) has destroyed cultural heritage on an unprecedented scale, primarily in Iraq and Syria, but also in Libya. These attacks and demolitions targeted a variety of ancient and medieval artifacts, museums, libraries, and places of worship, among other sites of importance to human history. Between June 2014 and February 2015, the Islamic State's Salafi jihadists plundered and destroyed at least 28 historic religious buildings in Mosul alone. Many of the valuables that were looted during these demolitions were used to bolster the economy of the IS.
Religious persecution The main targets of religious persecution by the Islamic State are Shia Muslims and Christians.
Persecution of Shia Muslims
Persecution of Christians
List of ISIS attacks on religious targets Date Events and locations Deaths Targeted group Kabul gurdwara attack Sikhs Kabul gurdwara attackhttps://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-19/two-killed-in-attack-on-sikh-temple-claimed-by-islamic-state/101165380 2+ Sikhs Qorodal bus shooting Shia Muhammad ibn Ali al-Hadi Mausoleum attack Shia Badush prison massacre Shia Baghdad bombings Shia Baghdad bombings Shia Baghdad–Miqdadiyah attacks Shia Guzara attack 6 Shia Hillah suicide truck bombing Shia Kabul bombing Shia Kabul bombing Shia Kabul bus bombing Shia, Hazara Kabul suicide bombing Shia Kabul suicide bombing Shia Kabul suicide bombing Shia Kandahar bombing Shia Karrada bombing Shia Al-Kazimiyya Mosque bombing Shia Khan Bani Saad bombing Shia Kunduz mosque bombing Shia Mazar-i-Sharif mosque bombing Shia Mazar-i-Sharif minivan bombings Shia Muscat mosque shooting Shia Nasiriyah attacks 84 Shia Pul-i-Khumri bombing 7 Shia Dammam mosque bombing 4 Shia Qatif mosque bombing 22 Shia Real Madrid fan club massacres Two different fan club locations 16+ Shia, fans of Real Madrid 12+ Sadr City bombings Shia Sadr City bombings Shia Shah Cheragh attack Shia Stabbing in Zurich Jewish Bondi Beach shooting 15 Jewish Dagestan attacks 5 Jewish Christian Manchester synagogue attack 2 Jewish
Ethnic or religiously identified armed groups Date Event Deaths Targeted group (disputed) Disputed attack on an Israeli soldier 1 Israel Defense Forces soldier. Camp Speicher massacre Shia, Iraqi Army cadets (unarmed)
See also Battle of Yarmouk Camp (December 2012) Battle of Yarmouk Camp (2015) Destruction of cultural heritage by the Islamic State Human rights in Islamic State-controlled territory List of massacres during the Syrian civil war List of terrorist incidents linked to the Islamic State Massacres committed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Persecution of Copts
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