Rojava Haider al-Abadi Ali Ghaidan Ahmed Saadi †[18] Masoud Barzani Jaafar Sheikh Mustafa Mustafa Said Qadir Murat Karayılan Cemil Bayık Salih Muslim Sipan Hamo Polat Can 150,000 federal soldiers[19][20]60,000 militiamen[21]3,000 Iranian Quds Force[22][23]1,000 U.S. troops[24] Major insurgent attacks Foreign interventions IS genocide of minorities IS war crimes Timeline Between 1 and 15 August 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) expanded territory in northern Iraq under their control.

In the region north and west from Mosul, the Islamic State conquered Zumar, Sinjar, Wana, Mosul Dam, Qaraqosh, Tel Keppe, Batnaya and Kocho, and in the region south and east of Mosul the towns Bakhdida, Karamlish, Bartella and Makhmour The offensive resulted in 200,000 Yazidi civilians and 100,000 Assyrians driven from their homes, 5,000 Yazidi men massacred, 5,000–7,000 Yazidi women enslaved, and a foreign military intervention against the Islamic State.

[34][35][36] A former commander of the Iraqi ground forces, Ali Ghaidan, accused former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of being the one who issued the order to withdraw.

[37] 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 an important supplier of electricity and water.

[36] On 5 August, the United States began with directly supplying munitions to the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces and, with Iraq's agreement, the shipment of weapons to the Kurds.

On 10 August, encouraged by American airstrikes, Kurdish Peshmerga forces retook the strategic towns of Gwer and Makhmour, both about 20 miles from Erbil.

[52] 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 ISIL.

[53] On 18 August, the U.S. president confirmed Kurdish Peshmerga ground troops, with the help of Iraqi Special Forces, overran ISIL militants and reclaimed the Mosul Dam.

[51] 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.

[60] According to local officials, this August ISIL advance nearly purged northwestern Iraq of most of its Christian (Assyrian) population.