Siege of Amerli

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Siege of Amerli
date Beginning of July 2014 to August 31, 2014
place Salah ad-Din Governorate , Iraq
output Victory of the Kurdish-Iraqi defenders
Parties to the conflict

Flag of Kurdistan.svg Iraqi Kurdistan Autonomous Region

Flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant2.svg Islamic State

The siege of Amerli was a military conflict between the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS) and the majority of the population of Amerli, who belong to the Turkmen of Iraq .

course

In early July 2014, the regular Iraqi units in Amerli had fled from the Sunni extremists. The residents of Amerli, mostly farmers and smallholders , decided in June to abandon their fields and take up arms. The remaining inhabitants began to fortify the city and every man became a soldier, they were able to repel the first attack. The city was then enclosed and besieged for weeks. The motivation of the residents can be seen in the statement of a 14-year-old: The tanks kept firing at our positions. There were a lot of snipers, but I was never afraid because I knew that if I surrendered they would kill my mother and siblings. And that gave me the strength to keep fighting.

In August 2014, the UN Special Envoy for Iraq, Nikolai Mladenov , called for urgent aid to the city and warned that the residents could be massacred if captured by the jihadists.

In August, a few days before the liberation, the residents of Amerli made a pact that they would commit suicide together if the radical Islamists set foot in the city. They would have preferred to kill themselves rather than die in a mass execution or become slaves.

The Iraqi air force began attacking the IS positions on August 27. The Iraqi army , Shiite militias and the Kurdish army took to the rescue on August 30, while the US air force attacked the IS positions. The breakthrough came on August 31, 2014. On the same day, the siege forces east of the city were defeated. The air force of Shiite-dominated Iran is likely to have participated for the first time.

consequences

According to a statement by Michael Knights, an Iraq expert from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy , the city became a symbol of Shiite resistance and was also the last non-Sunni community to be exposed to the terrorist organization.

On March 18, 2015, Human Rights Watch published a 31-page report on the situation after the siege ended. In this report, the Iraqi armed forces, but above all the voluntary militia groups, were accused of looting and burning down shops and houses of Sunni residents who had fled. Human Rights Watch also found that at least two surrounding villages were completely destroyed and many others were partially destroyed.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. a b Kronen Zeitung: Iraq: Small town Amerli celebrates liberation from IS , accessed on September 4, 2014
  2. Fierce battle for Amerli taz.de August 27, 2014
  3. ^ Fight against "Islamic State": Bundeswehr sends six soldiers to Iraq Spiegel Online August 28, 2014
  4. Handelsblatt: The offensive to liberate Amerli begins , accessed on August 30, 2014
  5. Iraqi troops advance into the besieged city of Amerli , accessed on August 31, 2014
  6. Tagesschau: Siege of Islamists broken ( memento from August 31, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on August 31, 2014
  7. n24: How a small town defies IS fighters , accessed on August 31, 2014
  8. HRW: Iraq: Militias destroy villages and displace thousands , accessed on March 19, 2015.