The Northern Iraq offensive was a major ISIL-led Sunni insurgent offensive launched against the Shia-dominated Iraqi government and the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan in Nineveh, Kirkuk, Saladin, and Diyala Governorates at the start of the Iraqi Civil War. The ISIL offensive smashed five Iraqi Army divisions, led to the proclamation of the "Islamic State" as a caliphate, and the start of ISIL genocides against Assyrian Christians, Shia Arabs and Turkmens, and Yazidis.
Background[]
In December 2013, the Iraqi government's crackdown on Sunni anti-government protests in Anbar Governorate provoked a major Sunni rebellion against the Shia-dominated government which, by June 2014, had overwhelmed 70% of Anbar Governorate and given the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and its allies control of major cities such as Fallujah, Rutbah, al-Qa'im, Abu Ghraib, Hit, and half of Ramadi. ISIL came to have a strength of 50,000 fighters in Iraq (including former al-Nusra Front fighters from Syria, as well as foreign fighters), bolstered by the 80,000-strong Ba'athist Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order and the local Anbar Tribes Revolutionary Council. The Sunni Arab insurgent forces all had different goals: the Islamic Army in Iraq and Hamas of Iraq sought to create an Islamic state governed by sharia law; the Ba'athist insurgents sought the restoration of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party's rule over the country; the ATRC sought greater autonomy for Anbar's Sunni Arab majority; and ISIL sought to create a worldwide Islamic caliphate. All of the Sunni insurgent groups shared a goal of overthrowing the sectarian government of Nouri al-Maliki. By June 2014, the insurgents were in a position to launch a new offensive against the Iraqi government, having repulsed a recent Iraqi Army counterattack. ISIL - which had amassed fighers and supplies drawn from their lands in Syria and Iraq, as well as funds from sympathetic Saudi and Qatari donors - launched its new offensive against northern and central Iraq in June 2014.
Offensive[]
In early June, less than 1,000 ISIL militants attacked the major cities of Mosul and Tikrit in northern and central Iraq, respectively. The Iraqi generals in command of the two cities had Ba'athist sympathies, and they were the first to flee; the common Iraqi soldiers realized that they were no match for the battle-hardened jihadists and also deserted en masse, with 90,000 Iraqi soldiers dropping their equipment, stripping off their uniforms, and abandoning their vehicles before fleeing their defensive positions. Thirdly, Iraqi Kurdistan was no friend of the Shia Iraqi government, and it refused to aid the Iraqi government in holding back the ISIL offensive. Coordination between ISIL and the Ba'athist loyalists granted ISIL control of underground networks of former military, insurgents, Sunni officials, and tribal groups, launching mini-coups in regions with high levels of Ba'athist support. Mosul fell on 10 June 2014, and ISIL seized large quantities of abandoned United States-supplied military equipment, including tanks, APCs, drones, Humvees, assault weapons, and other supplies which fed their continued advance. ISIL also freed thousands of prisoners from the local prisons, replenishing and bolstering their numbers. Mosul's last remaining Christians fled the city, which until 2003 had made up a community of 35,000.
On 11 June 2014, ISIL insurgents advanced into the oil refinery town of Baiji, easily capturing the town. On that same evening, ISIL took full control of Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit with the aid of the local Ba'athist cells. At least 300 inmates were freed from the city's prisons, two police stations were burned down, and a military base was captured. On 12 June, ISIL surrounded the city of Samarra, and ISIL also routed a convoy of 60 trucks and hundreds of Iraqi border police at Sinjar, massacring them and forcing the survivors to abandon their vehicles and flee to Sinjar on foot.
On 13 June 2014, the Iraqi government began a counterattack against ISIL, supported by Iranian Quds Force and IRGC soldiers. The Iraqi-Iranian forces gathered at Samarra and recaptured al-Mutasim, but ISIL fighters mined the roads leading into Tikrit and positioned artillery in anticipation of an Iraqi siege. On 28 June, the Iraqi Army attacked Tikrit, but this attempt failed. Meanwhile, the JRTN and former Ba'athists captured Tal Afar and its nearby airbase on 15 June, forcing its Shia Turkmen defenders to flee into Kurdistan. West of Baghdad, ISIL captured Saqlawiyah. On 17 June, the Army recaptured Baqubah. By late June, a combination of desertions, casualties, and loss of equipment forced the Iraqi Army to increasingly rely on volunteers drawn from local Shia militias, who formed the Popular Mobilization Forces. On 25 June, Iran set up a special control center at al-Rasheed Air Base in Baghdad, and ten Iranian divisions were deployed to the border.