Timeline of ISIL-related events

Main article: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

Current military situation (September 2014):

  Controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)

  Controlled by other Syrian rebels

  Controlled by Syrian government

  Controlled by Iraqi government

  Controlled by Syrian Kurds

  Controlled by Iraqi Kurds

This article is about the timeline of Military actions of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS) from its renaming in April 2013 to the present. See also ISIL offensive at Syrian Civil War and Terrorist incidents in Iraq in 2014.

2013 events

• On 8 April 2013, having expanded into Syria, the group (ISIL) adopted the name "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant", also known as "Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham."
• Starting in April 2013, ISIL made rapid military gains in Northern Syria, where according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights they were "the strongest group".
• 11 May: Two car bombs exploded in the town of Reyhanlı in Hatay Province, Turkey. At least 51 people were killed and 140 injured in the attack. The attack was the deadliest single act of terrorism ever to take place on Turkish soil. Along with the Syrian intelligence service, ISIL was suspected of carrying out the bombing attack.
• By 12 May, nine Turkish citizens, who were alleged to have links with Syria's intelligence service, had been detained. On 21 May 2013, the Turkish authorities charged the prime suspect and 12 people were charged in total. All suspects were Turkish nationals whom Ankara believed were backed by the Syrian government.
• In July, the Free Syrian Army's battalion chief Kamal Hamami—better known by his nom de guerre Abu Bassir Al-Jeblawi—was killed by ISIL's Coast region emir in Latakia's rural northern highlands. Al-Jeblawi was traveling to visit the Al-Izz Bin Abdulsalam Brigade operating in the region when ISIL members refused his passage.
• Also in July, ISIL organised a mass break-out of its members being held in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. The Guardian reported that over 500 prisoners escaped, including senior commanders of ISIL. ISIL described the operation as involving 12 car bombs, numerous suicide bombers and mortar and rocket fire. It was described as the culmination of a one-year campaign which was launched by ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
• In early August, ISIL led the final assault in the Siege of Menagh Air Base.
• In September, members of ISIL killed the Ahrar ash-Sham commander Abu Obeida Al-Binnishi, after he had intervened to protect a Malaysian Islamic charity; ISIL had mistaken its Malaysian flag for that of the United States.
• Also in September, ISIL overran the town of Azaz, taking it from an FSA-affiliated rebel brigade. ISIL had attempted to kidnap a German doctor working in Azaz. In November 2013, Today's Zaman, a newspaper in Turkey, reported that Turkish authorities had detailed information on ISIL's plans to carry out suicide bombings in Turkey.
• From 30 September, several Turkish media websites reported that ISIL had accepted responsibility for the 11 May attack and had threatened further attacks on Turkey.
• In November, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights stated that ISIL is the strongest group in Northern Syria
• In December, there were reports of fighting between ISIL and the rebel group, Ahrar ash-Sham, in the town of Maskana, Aleppo.
• In December, ISIL began an offensive in Al Anbar province in Iraq, changing insurgency there into a regional war.

2014 events

January 2014

• 3 January: ISIL proclaimed itself an Islamic state in Fallujah. After prolonged tensions, the newly formed Army of Mujahedeen, the Free Syrian Army and the Islamic Front launched an offensive against ISIL in the Syrian provinces of Aleppo and Idlib. Rebels had attacked ISIL in up to 80% of all ISIL-held villages in Idlib and 65% of those in Aleppo.
• 4 January: ISIL claimed responsibility for the car-bomb attack on 2 January that killed four people and wounded dozens in the Beirut suburb of Haret Hreik, a Hezbollah bastion.
• 6 January: Syrian rebels had managed to expel ISIL from the city of Ar-Raqqah, ISIL's largest stronghold and capital of Ar-Raqqah province.
• 8 January: Syrian rebels expelled most ISIL forces from the city of Aleppo. However, ISIL reinforcements from Deir ez-Zor province managed to retake several neighborhoods of the city of Ar-Raqqah. By mid-January ISIL fighters had retaken the entire city of Ar-Raqqah, while rebels expelled ISIL from the city of Aleppo and the villages west of it.
• 25 January: ISIL announced the creation of its new Lebanese arm, pledging to fight the Shia militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
• 29 January: Turkish aircraft near the border fired on an ISIL convoy inside Aleppo province in Syria, killing 11 ISIL fighters and one ISIL emir.
• 30 January: ISIL fired on border patrol soldiers in Turkey. The Turkish Army retaliated with Panter howitzers and destroyed the ISIL convoy.
• In late January, it was confirmed that Syrian rebels had assassinated ISIL's second-in-command, Haji Bakr, who was al-Qaeda's military council head and a former military officer in Saddam Hussein's army.

February 2014

• 3 February: al-Qaeda's general command broke off its links with ISIL, reportedly to concentrate the Islamist effort on unseating President Bashar al-Assad.
• By mid-February, the al-Nusra Front had joined the battle in support of rebel forces, and expelled ISIL forces from Deir ez-Zor province in Syria.
• 23 February: ISIL carried out a suicide attack in Aleppo killing a commander of Ahrar ash-Sham and 6 other members of the group.

March 2014

• By March, ISIL forces had fully retreated from Syria's Idlib province after battles against the Syrian rebels.
• 4 March: ISIL retreated from the Turkey border town of Azaz and nearby villages, choosing instead to consolidate around Ar-Raqqah, in anticipation of an escalation of fighting with al-Nusra.
• 8 March: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of openly funding ISIL.
• 20 March: In Niğde city in Turkey, three ethnic Albanian members of ISIL—opened fire while hijacking a truck which killed one police officer and one gendarmerie officer and wounded five people. Shortly after their arrest, Polis Özel Harekat teams launched a series of operations against ISIL in İstanbul. Two Azerbaijanis were arrested.

April 2014

• 27 April: Iraqi helicopters reportedly destroyed an ISIL convoy inside Syria. This may be the first time that Iraqi forces have struck outside their country since the Gulf War.

May 2014

• 1 May: ISIL carried out a total of seven public executions in the city of Ar-Raqqah, in northern Syria. Pictures that emerged from the city show how ISIL had been carrying out public crucifixions in areas under its control. In most of these crucifixions, the victims were shot first and their bodies were then displayed, but there were also reports of crucifixions preceding the victims being shot or decapitated.

June 2014

• In early June, following its large-scale offensives in Iraq, ISIL was reported to have seized control of most of Mosul, the second most populous city in Iraq, a large part of the surrounding Nineveh province, and the city of Fallujah. ISIL also took control of Tikrit, the administrative center of the Salah ad Din Governorate, with the ultimate goal of capturing Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. ISIL was believed to have only 2,000–3,000 fighters up until the Mosul campaign, but during that campaign, it became evident that this number was a gross underestimate.
• Also in June, there were reports that a number of Sunni groups in Iraq that were opposed to the predominantly Shia government had joined ISIL, thus bolstering the group's numbers. However, the Kurds—who are mostly Sunnis—were unwilling to be drawn into the conflict, and there were clashes in the area between ISIL and the Kurdish Peshmerga.
• 5 June: ISIL militants stormed the city of Samarra, Iraq, before being ousted by airstrikes mounted by the Iraqi military (according to army officials, 12 policemen, 80 ISIL militants and several civilians were killed).
• 6 June: ISIL militants carried out multiple attacks in the city of Mosul, Iraq.
• 7 June: ISIL militants took over the University of Anbar in Ramadi, Iraq and held 1,300 students hostage, before being ousted by the Iraqi military.
• 8 June: an ISIL bombing in Jalula killed 18 members of the Kurdish security forces. ISIL forces captured Hawija, Zab, Riyadh, Abbasi, Rashad and Yankaja near Kirkuk.
• 9 June: Mosul fell to ISIL control. The militants seized control of government offices, the airport, and police stations. Militants also looted the Central Bank in Mosul, reportedly absconding with US$429 million. More than 500,000 people fled Mosul to escape ISIL, including 400 Christian families, nearly the entire Christian element of the population of Mosul, who were given by ISIL the alternative chanches of converst, being taxed, flee or be killed. Mosul is a strategic city as it is at a crossroad between Syria and Iraq, and poses the threat of ISIL seizing control of oil production. At the same time, hundreds of Christian families fled from the Nineva Plains in face of the ISIL advance. 15 captured Iraqi soldiers were executed by ISIL near Kirkuk.
• 10 June: 670 inmates of the Badush prison in Mosul were executed by ISIL. The 4th-Centhury Mar Behnam Monastery was seized with ISIL, which forced its moks to leave without taking anything with them. 60 UN staff were evacuated from Baghdad to Jordan.
• 11 June: ISIL seized the Turkish consulate in the Iraqi city of Mosul, and kidnapped the head of the diplomatic mission and several staff members. Baiji was captured by ISIL forces, except for its surrounded oil refinery. Tikrit also fell to ISIL, which attacked Samarra as well, without succeeding in conquering it. 46 Indian nurses were stranded in Tikrit (they were released and flown back to India at the beginning of July)
• 12 June: ISIL captured ten towns in Saladin Province and routed an Iraqi Border Patrol battalion heading towards Sinjar with 60 trucks. Part of the 4,000-11,000 cadets and soldiers which had been ordere to leave the Camp Speicher base were captured by ISIL, which executed between 1,095 and 1,700 of them over the next three days. Human Rights Watch, issued a statement about the growing threat to civilians in Iraq. ISIL laid siege to the town of Amerli, where 13,000 Turkmen civilians were trapped.
• 13 June: ISIL captured two towns in Diyala Province and several villages around Hamrin Mountains. Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, expressed alarm at reports that ISIL fighters "have been actively seeking out—and in some cases killing—soldiers, police and others, including civilians, whom they perceive as being associated with the government."

Kurdish Peshmerga forces occupied the city of Kirkuk, abandoned by the retreating Iraqi Army in face of the ISIL offensive, and seized abandoned military vehicles. Kurdish forces also secured Jalula after it had been abandoned by Iraqi Army.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad on 23 June 2014

• 14 June: Iraqi Army recaptured the town of Al-Mutasim near Samarra. 128 bodies of Iraqi soldiers and policemen who had been killed in the battle of Mosul were retrieved by medical staff.
• 15 June: ISIL militants captured the Iraqi city of Tal Afar, in the province of Nineveh, and its air base (18 ISIL militants, 10 civilians and a presumably heavy number of defenders were killed) and also two villages in Adhaim. Iraqi Air Force claimed to have killed 278 ISIL militants in air strikes.
• 22 June: ISIL militants captured two key crossings in Anbar, a day after seizing the border crossing at Al-Qaim, a town in a province which borders Syria.
• 24 June: The Syrian Air Force bombed ISIL positions in Iraq. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki stated: "There was no coordination involved, but we welcome this action. We welcome any Syrian strike against ISIS because this group targets both Iraq and Syria."
• 25 June: The al-Nusra Front's branch in the Syrian town of al-Bukamal pledged loyalty to ISIL, thus bringing months of fighting between the two groups to a close.
• 25 June: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said that Iraq had purchased used Sukhoi fighter jets from Russia and Belarus to battle ISIL militants, after delays in the delivery of F-16 fighters purchased from the US. "[If] we had air cover, we would have averted what happened", he said.
• 26 June: Iraq launched its first counterattack against ISIL's advance with an airborne assault designed to seize back control of Tikrit University.
• 28 June: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Obama administration had requested US$500 million from Congress to use in the training and arming of "moderate" Syrian rebels fighting against the Syrian government, in order to counter the growing threat posed by ISIL in Syria and Iraq.
• 29 June: ISIL announced the establishment of a new caliphate. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was appointed its caliph, and the group formally changed its name to the "Islamic State".
• 30 June: Iraqi army recaptured the town of Mukayshifah, killing 40 ISIL members and capturing 13. Iraqi Army attempts to recapture Tikrit were repelled by ISIL, which lost 215 men according to Iraqi government sources.

July 2014

Prophet Yunus Mosque before being destroyed.

• 2 July: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed caliph of the new "Islamic State" (ISIL), said that Muslims should unite to capture Rome in order to "own the world." He called on Muslims around the world to unite behind him as their leader.
• 3 July: ISIL captured Syria's largest oilfield from al-Nusra Front, who put up no resistance to the attack which took control of the al-Omar oilfield. Iraqi Army recaptured the town of Awja near Tikrit.
• 11–12 July: ISIL members massacre about 700 Turkmen civilians in the village of Beshir.
• 15 July: a new attempt by Iraqi Army to recapture Tikrit was repelled, with 52 Iraqi soldiers and 40 ISIL members killed.
• 17 July: Syria's Shaer gas field in the Homs Governorate was seized by ISIL. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 90 National Defence Force guards defending the field were killed, as were 21 ISIL fighters. The SOHR later put the death toll from the fighting and executions at 270 soldiers, militiamen and staff, and at least 40 ISIL fighters.
• 19 July: ISIL claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing which killed 33 people and left more than 50 wounded. The explosion occurred in Baghdad's Kadhimiya district, which is the site of a major Shia shrine.
• 24 July: ISIL blew up the Mosque and tomb of the Prophet Yunus (Jonah) in Mosul, with no reported casualties. Residents in the area said that ISIL had erased a piece of Iraqi heritage. Johah's tomb was also an important holy site in the Jewish heritage as well.
• 25 July: ISIL captures a Syrian 17th Division base near Raqqa and beheads several captured soldiers, whose heads are displayed in Raqqa. 32 jihadists and 42 Syrian Army members were overall killed on this day in clashes between ISIL and Syrian Army in Hasakeh, Raqqa and Aleppo provinces.
• 26 July: ISIL blew up the Nabi Shiyt (Prophet Seth) shrine in Mosul. Sami al-Massoudi, deputy head of the Shia endowment agency which oversees holy sites, confirmed the destruction and added that ISIL had taken artifacts from the shrine.
• 28 July: To mark the Muslim holy festival of Eid al-Fitr, which ends the period of Ramadan, ISIL released a video showing graphic scenes of mass executions.
• 29–30 July: 43 Shabak families were abducted by ISIL in villages near Mosul.
• The UN reported that of the 1,737 fatal casualties of the Iraq conflict during July, 1,186 were civilians.

US President Obama delivers an update on the situation and US position on Iraq, authorizing airstrikes against ISIL and humanitarian aid for religious minorities trapped on a mountain.

August 2014

• 1 August: The Indonesian National Counterterrorism Agency (id) declared ISIL a terrorist organization.
• 2 August: The Iraqi Army confirmed that 37 loyalist fighters had died during combat with ISIL south of Baghdad and in Mosul. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) claimed that "hundreds" of ISIL militiamen had died in the action.
• 2 August: ISIL and its al-Nusra Front allies invaded Lebanon in and around the town of Arsal, sparking a five-day battle with the Lebanese Army, which pushed ISIL near to the border with Syria. Over a 100 fighters were killed and scores of civilians were killed or wounded.
• 3 August: ISIL fighters occupied the Iraqi city of Zumar and an oilfield in the north of Iraq, after a battle against Kurdish forces. Also the Yazidi city of Sinjar was captured, prompting a massacre of its inhabitants. More than 12 Yazidi children died of hunger, dehydratation and heat on Jabar Sinjar. Ten Yazidi families fleeing from al-Qahtaniya area were attacked by ISIL, which killed the men and abducted women and children. 70 to 90 Yazidi men were shot by ISIL members in Qiniyeh village. 450-500 abducted Yazidi women and girls were taken to Tal Afar; hundreds more to Si Basha Khidri and then Ba’aj.
• 4 August: ISIL fighters attacked Jabal Sinjar, killed 30 Yazidi men and abducted a number of women. Two Yazidi children and some elderly or people with disabilities died on Jabal Sinjar. 60 more Yazidi men were killed in the village of Hardan, and their wives and daughters abducted. Other Yazidi women were abducted in other villages in the area. Yazidi community leaders stated that at lest 200 Yazidi had been killed in Sinjar and 60-70 near Ramadi Jabal.
• 5 August: Al Jazeera reported that an ISIL offensive in the Sinjar area of northern Iraq had forced 30,000–50,000 Yazidis to flee into the mountains. They had been threatened with death if they refused conversion to Islam. A UN representative said that "a humanitarian tragedy is unfolding in Sinjar." (See Persecution of Yazidis by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.) The number of Yazidi children who died of hunger and dehydratation on Jabal Sinjar reached 40.
• 6 August: ISIL captured the town of Tal Keif. According to reports from surviving Yazidi, between 3 and 6 August more than 50 Yazidi were killed near Dhola village, 100 in Khana Sor village, 250-300 in Hardan area, more than 200 on the road between Adnaniya and Jazeera, dozens near al-Shimal village and on the road from Matu village to Jabal Sinjar, and more than 200 children had died from thirst, starvation and heat while fleeing to Jabal Sinjar; about 500 Yazidi women and children were abducted from Ba’aj and more than 200 from Tal Banat. Many of them were sold as sex slaves. More than 80,000 people, mostly Yazidi, fled Sinjar district.
• 7 August: ISIL fighters took control of the town of Qaraqosh in the province of Nineveh in northern Iraq, which forced its large (50,000) Christian population to flee. Also the towns of Bartella, Tel Keppe, Karemlash and Makhmour fell to the ISIL on the same day. ISIL executed in Sinjar about 100 Shia Turkmen displaced from Tal Afar. A total of 200,000 Christian Assyrians fled from these cities and from villages in the Nineva plains.
• 7 August: US President Obama authorized targeted airstrikes in Iraq against ISIL, along with airdrops of aid. The UK offered the US assistance with surveillance and refueling, and planned humanitarian airdrops to Iraqi refugees.
• 8 August: The US asserted that the systematic destruction of the Yazidi people by ISIL was genocide. The US military launched indefinite airstrikes targeting ISIL fighters, equipment and installations, with humanitarian aid support from the UK and France, in order to protect civilians in northern Iraq. ISIL had advanced to within 30 km of Erbil in northern Iraq. The UK is also considering joining the US in airstrikes.
• 10 August: France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said that Iraq's Kurds must be equipped to fight against ISIL and indicated that France would consider providing arms aid. ISIL militants buried an unknown number of Yazidi women and children alive, in an attack that killed 500 people, in what has been described as ongoing genocide in northern Iraq. Kurdish forces retook the towns of Makhmour and al-Gweir.
• 11 August: The Arab League accused ISIL of committing crimes against humanity. The UK decided not to join the US in airstrikes and instead stepped up its humanitarian aid to refugees.
• 12 August: The parents of kidnapped American journalist James Foley received an email from his captors. The US announced that it would not extend its airstrikes against ISIL to areas outside northern Iraq, emphasizing that the objective of the airstrikes was to protect US diplomats in Erbil. The US and the UK airdropped 60,000 litres of water and 75,000 meals for stranded refugees. The Vatican called on religious leaders of all denominations, particularly Muslim leaders, to unite and condemn the IS for what it described as "heinous crimes" and the use of religion to justify them. An Iraqi Air Force helicopter involved in the rescue of Yazidis on Mount Sinjar crashed near Sinjar, killing Major General Majid Ahmed Saadi (the pilot) and injuring 20 people, including Yazidi Member of Parliament Vian Dakhil and a New York times reporter.
• 13 August: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that ISIL had seized control of six villages near the Turkish border in the northern province of Aleppo in Syria.

  

  More than 10,000 Kurds in Hanover protest against the terror of ISIL in Iraq, 16 August 2014

• 14 August: Kurdish Peshmerga forces and U.S. air strike broke the ISIL siege on Mount Sinjar, thus allowing tens of thousands of Yazidi refugees trapped there to escape. Nouri al-Maliki resigned from his position of Prime Minister of Iraq.
• 15 August: The United Nations Security Council issued a resolution which condemned in the strongest terms "the terrorist acts of ISIL and its violent extremist ideology, and its continued ... systematic abuses ... of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law". The entire male population of the Yazidi village of Khocho, up to 400 men, were rounded up and shot by ISIL, and up to 1000 women and children were abducted. Up to 200 Yazidi men were reportledy executed for refusing conversion in Tal Afar prison.
• 16 August: ISIL massacred 80 Yazidis. The EU agreed to supply Kurdish forces with arms, and US military forces continued to attack ISIL in the area around Iraq’s crucial Mosul Dam.
• 17 August: The SOHR reported that ISIL had killed 700 members of the Syrian al-Sheitaat tribe, mostly civilians, after clashes over the control of two oilfields in the region. Peshmerga troops, aided by the US air campaign, began an offensive to take back the Mosul Dam from ISIL, amid fears that the destruction of the dam might unleash a 65-foot wave of water that would engulf the city of Mosul and flood Baghdad.
• 18 August: Pope Francis, leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, said that the international community would be justified in stopping Islamist militants in Iraq. He also said that it should not be up to a single nation to decide how to intervene in the conflict.
• 19 August: According to the SOHR, ISIL now has an army of more than 50,000 fighters in Syria. American journalist James Foley was beheaded by ISIL on video tape. After three days of fighting, Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi Army forces, helped by American air strikes, recaptured the Mosul Dam. An attempt by the Iraqi Army to recapture Tikrit was repelled by the ISIL forces.
• 20 August: President Obama denounced the "brutal murder of Jim Foley by the terrorist group ISIL."
• 21 August: The US military admitted that a covert rescue attempt involving US Special Operations forces had been made to rescue James Foley and other Americans held captive in Syria by ISIL. The ensuing gunfight resulted in one US soldier being injured. The rescue was unsuccessful, as the captives were not in the location targeted. This was the first known engagement by US ground forces with suspected ISIL militants. The US Defense Secretary warned that ISIL were tremendously well-funded, adding, "They have no standard of decency, of responsible human behavior", and that they were an imminent threat to the US.
• 22 August: The US is considering airstrikes on ISIL in Syria, which would draw US military forces directly into the Syrian Civil War, as President Obama develops a long-term strategy to defeat ISIL. As a reprisal of a car bombing which killed three militiamen, members of the Shi'ite al-Zarkoshi militia murdered 73 Sunni civilians in the Musab bin Umair mosque.
• 24–25 August: 14 elderly Yazidi men were executed by ISIL in the Sheikh Mand Shrine, and the Jidala village Yazidi shrine was blown up.
• 26 August: ISIL carried out a suicide attack in Baghdad killing 15 people and injuring 37 others.
• 28 August: ISIL beheaded a Lebanese Army soldier whom they had kidnapped. The group also beheaded a Kurdish Peshmerga fighter in response to Kurdistan's alliance with the United States, and executed around 250 Syrian soldiers captured after the fall of Tabqa Air Base in Ar-Raqqah province.
• 29 August: UK Prime Minister David Cameron raised the UK's terror level to "severe" and committed to fight radical Islam "at home and abroad".
• 31 August: Iraqi military forces supported by Shia militias and American airstrikes broke the two-month siege of the northern Iraqi town of Amerli by ISIL militants. 25 ISIL members were killed in the fight and 15 captured, while Iraqi losses were 16 killed, 6 executed and 39 wounded. German Federal Minister of Defence Ursula von der Leyen announced that Germany will send weapons to arm 4,000 Peshmerga fighters in Iraq fighting ISIL. The delivery will include 16,000 assault rifles, 40 machine guns, 240 rocket-propelled grenades, 500 MILAN anti-tank missiles with 30 launchers and 10,000 hand grenades, with a total value of around 70 million euros. In order to prevent an excessive accumulation of arms, the Bundeswehr seconded six liaison officers to Erbil.
• By the end of the month, more than 5,000 Yazidi civilians had been murdered and 5,000 to 7,000 abducted by ISIL, according to the United Nations.

September 2014

• 1 September: The German government's Cabinet decision to arm the Kurdish Peshmerga was ratified in the Bundestag by a "vast majority" of votes, after an emotional debate. The Yazidi villages of Kotan, Hareko and Kharag Shafrsky were set on fire by ISIL.
• 2 September: ISIL released a video showing the beheading of American journalist Steven Sotloff. After three days of fighting, Kurdish Peshmerga recaptured from ISIL the town of Zumar.
• 4 September: A member of ISIL issued a threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin, vowing to oust him over his support of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria.
• 5 September: The German Bundeswehr dispatched the first of a series of cargo planes to Iraq, loaded with helmets, vests, radios, and infrared night-vision rifle scopes. After a stopover in Baghdad for inspection, the aircraft will deliver the equipment to the Kurdish fighters. Qassem Soleimani, Commander of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force, has been to the Iraqi city of Amirli, to work with the United States in pushing back ISIL.
• 8 September: ISIL carried out a double suicide attack in a town north of Baghdad, killing nine people and wounding 70 others. An ISIL attack with shelling and explosive vehicles against the town of Duloeliyah killed at least 20 civilians and wounded 120 more.
• 9 September: Peshmerga fighters discovered a mass grave containing the bodies of 14 executed civilians, presumably Yazidis.
• 10 September: After ISIL outraged American opinion by beheading two American journalists and seized control of large portions of Syria and Iraq, President Obama decided on a new objective for a rollback policy in the Middle East. He announced: "America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat. We will ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy."
• 13 September: UK humanitarian aid worker David Cawthorne Haines, whose life had been threatened by Jihadi John in the Steven Sotloff video, was purportedly beheaded in a video.
• 14 September: A number of Algerian jihadist commanders of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb broke allegiance with al-Qaeda, swore loyalty to ISIL and created the group Jund al-Khilafah.
• 15 September: The Battle of Suq al Ghazi ended with a US–Iraqi win.
• 17 September: ISIL launched a major offensive to capture the YPG-controlled city of Kobanê/Ayn al-Arab.
• 18 September: The Australian Federal Police, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Queensland Police and New South Wales Police launched the largest counterterrorism operation in Australian history. The targets were ISIL-linked networks thought to be planning to launch mass-casualty attacks in populated areas. Fifteen people were arrested in the raids with one being charged with terrorism offenses.
• 20 September: The hostages from the Turkish consulate in Mosul who had been captured on 11 June 2014 were released.
• 21 September: ISIL forces overran the Iraqi military base of Saqlawiyah and captured the towns of Saqlawiyah and Sicher. 155 to 370 or more Iraqi soldiers were killed in the attack, with 68 to 400 being captured.
• 21 September: Official spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani released a speech encouraging Muslims around the world to kill non-Muslims.
• 23 September: Aerial operations began over Syria. Cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs struck ISIL targets in Syria, and military aircraft from Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates participated in the airstrikes against ISIL. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated that about 400 ISIL fighters died in the airstrikes.
• 24 September: Jund al-Khilafah, an Algerian terrorist group affiliated to ISIL, behead the French tourist Hervé Goudel (kidnapped in Djurdjura National Park on September 21) as a reprisal for French intervention against the ISIL.
• 29 September: ISIL released a third video showing journalist John Cantlie. As in previous videos, Cantlie appears alone, sitting at a desk wearing an orange prison uniform. The scripted video criticizes US president Barack Obama’s strategy of using airstrikes to defeat ISIL.

October 2014

• 1 October: the town of Taza Kharmatho is retaken by Peshmerga and Iraqi Army forces, but remains uninhabitable due to booby traps left by ISIL.
• 2 October: The Turkish Parliament voted 298:98 to authorize anti-ISIL operations, following concerns over ISIL advances close to Turkey's borders. Turkey will allow foreign anti-ISIL military operations to be launched from within its borders and gave authorization for Turkey's military to be sent into Syria.
• 3 October: Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced that Australia would contribute eight F/A-18F Super Hornets to aid the war effort against Islamic extremists in Iraq. The aircraft join a KC-30A Tanker and an E-7A Wedgetail AEW&C aircraft already deployed.
• 3 October: ISIL released a video showing the beheading of British aid worker Alan Henning and threatened American aid worker, Peter Kassig.
• 4 October: ISIL captured the Iraqi city of Kabisa. Two bombs killed seven people and wounded 18 in the towns of Tarmiyah and Husseiniya. An Iraqi officer and seven soldiers were killed in two ambushes in Diyala province in Iraq.
• 5 October: A joint ISIL–al-Nusra invasion of Lebanon was beaten back by Hezbollah.
• 7 October: The House of Commons of the Parliament of Canada voted 157:134 to authorize the Royal Canadian Air Force to conduct airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq.
• 8 October: Terrorists claiming to be "Islamic State in Gaza" took responsibility for an explosion and fire in the French Cultural Center in Gaza City. However, hours later, a group by the same name denied responsibility for the blast. The blast did not result in casualties. The incident was downplayed by Hamas as likely being a generator malfunction.
• 10 October: Spanish Defence Minister Pedro Morenés announces that Spain will send 300 troops to Iraq in non-combat roles.
• 11 October: Car bombings killed at least 38 people in Baghdad.
• 12 October: Two improvised explosive devices killed General Ahmad Sadak al Dulaymi, chief of police of Al Anbar province, and three more men.
• 13 October: US airplanes launched 21 strikes against ISIL forces near the besieged town of Kobane in northern Syria on the border with Turkey.
• 14 October: ISIL forces captured the Iraqi city of Hīt, after the 300-strong Iraqi Army garrison abandoned its local base, and about 180,000 civilians fled the area. Taliban leaders in Pakistan swore loyalty to ISIL, after fundamentalists in Egypt and Libya had done the same several days previously. A suicide car bombing killed 25 people in Baghdad, including Iraqi Parliament member Ahmed al-Khafajii; 3 more people were killed by a roadside bomb. Reports spread about the formation of small Syrian armed groups which target and kill ISIL members in ISIL-controlled territory.
• Between 7 and 14 October, 42 people were killed in Turkey in clashes between Kurdish fighters and ISIL supporters, 12 of them in Diyarbakir.
• 15 October: The US anti-ISIL operation was named "Operation Inherent Resolve". The US launched 18 airstrikes against ISIL forces in Kobane. Forty-six people were executed by ISIL in Mosul.
• 16 October: ISIL has been driven out of most of Kobane, except for two pockets of resistance in the east of the town. Four car bombings killed 36 people and wounded 98 in Baghdad Italian Defence Minister Roberta Pinotti announces that Italy is to send 280 soldiers to train Kurd fighters, plus two Predator drones and a KC-767 refuelling plane.
• 17 October: Iraqi Army and police storm an ISIL camp in Jaberiya, killing 60 ISIL militants; other senior ISIL figures are killed in another attack near Ramadi Residents of Aleppo area report that three Mig-21 or Mig-23 fighters are being flown ISIL militants under training by former Iraqi Ba'ath officers at Al Jarrah air base. Yemen leaders of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula urge all jihadists to "forget their differences" and join ISIL in the fight against Western "crusaders".
• 17-18 October: U.S. launch 25 air strikes against ISIL in Syria and Iraq.