Kurdish Peshmerga, PKK fighters, Iraqi and Syrian government forces, Shi'ite militias, and Syrian rebels are all mobilizing to resist as ISIS advances on multiple fronts.
A Yazidi militia is fighting alongside Peshmerga to re-take Sinjar from ISIS, while the UN's Iraq envoy warned of an imminent massacre of Turkmen at ISIS-besieged Amerli.
Up to 70 were massacred during prayers at a Sunni mosque in Iraq's Diyala governorate—apparently by a Shi'ite militia seeking retribution for a bomb attack on their forces.
In a Pentagon press conference, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that ISIS cannot be defeated unless the US or its partners take them on in Syria.
ISIS released a video showing the forced mass "conversion" of hundreds of captive Yazidis. Some 90,000 displaced Yazidis now face horrific conditions, without even rudimentary shelter.
Kurdish parliament leaders charged that ISIS is selling abducted Yazidi women in Mosul, and that an Iranian Quds force has intervened against ISIS—with US connivance.
The taking of the Mosul Dam on the Tigris River from ISIS by Peshmerga forces backed by US air power highlights the strategic nature of water in the multi-sided Iraq conflict.
ISIS fighters are accused of executing some 700 tribesmen who rose against them in eastern Syria, as Bashar Assad said he is ready to back Kurdish forces against the jihadis.
A Yazidi militia group has entered the fight against ISIS, clashing with militants near Sinjar—while Baghdad's army command objected to foreign military aid to Kurdish forces.
ISIS fighters carried out a massacre of Yazidis at an occupied village, while Hezbollah militiamen are accused in a massacre of Sunni Arab residents in central Iraq.
The US dropped plans for a rescue mission for besieged Yazidis—over the protests of Yazidi leaders—as the "terrorist" PKK joined US-backed Peshmerga in the fight against ISIS.
Obama dispatched 130 new military advisors to Iraqi Kurdistan, but is resisting the Kurdistan government's appeal for more arms to fight ISIS. France has pledged new arms shipments.
