Sinjar

A Chechen ISIL militant 'cleaned' 19-year-old Dalia with petrol before raping her... Daily Hürriyet interviews ISIL's Yazidi sex slaves in three refugee camps in northern Iraq, publishing their harrowing accounts. They were kidnapped, sold as sex slaves and raped for months at the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants.

Women and girls from Iraq's Yazidi minority endured horrors at the hands of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants after they were taken as slaves last summer, leaving them deeply traumatized, an international watchdog group said in a report issued on Dec. 23.

Kurdish and Yazidi fighters battled to take the strategic northern Iraqi town of Sinjar back from
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Dec. 21 after breaking a months-long siege of the mountain above it.

Seizing the town would restore the majority of territory Iraq's Kurds lost in the jihadist group's surprise August offensive.

Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani hailed victories over the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) during a visit on Dec. 21 to Mount Sinjar, which had been besieged by the militants for months.

Kurdish forces backed up by US-led warplanes have recaptured a large area in Iraq near the Syrian border in an offensive against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadists, a top US commander said Dec. 18.
      

Islamic State militants have killed at least 500 members of Iraq's Yazidi ethnic minority during their offensive in the north, Iraq's human rights minister told Reuters on Aug. 10.

Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said the Sunni militants had also buried alive some of their victims, including women and children. Some 300 women were kidnapped as slaves, he added.