Kurdish forces made further gains against ISIS at Kobani in the final days of 2014, while the Peshmerga are preparing an offensive to drive the jihadis from Kurdish lands in Iraq.
Three were killed in southeastern Turkish town of Cizre in clashes between Islamist militants of the Huda-Par and followers of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
With regime bombardment intensifying, Syrian rebel factions in Aleppo announced a new "Shamiyya Front"—a further consolidation of "moderate" Islamist forces.
US ground troops fought their first direct battle against ISIS as the jihadists launched an attack on a base in Anbar that housed mixed US, Iraqi and tribal forces.
Syrian rebels announced formation of a new Revolutionary Command Council at a meeting in Turkey—dominated by conservative Islamists but excluding Nusra Front and ISIS.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center says Alois Brunner, the world's most-wanted Nazi fugitive, died a free man in Syria, where he trained interrogators for sucessive regimes.
Iran launched air-strikes against ISIS targets in Iraq, the Pentagon admitted. Meanwhile, it appears that NATO ally Turkey opened its territory to ISIS forces attacking Kobani.
Pari Ibrahim of the Free Yezidi Foundation spoke at New York's Institute for the Study of Human Rights on the ongoing genocide and sexual slavery of her people at the hands of ISIS.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that US-led airstrikes in Syria have killed over 900—including 785 ISIS fighters, 72 Nusra Front militants and 52 civilians.
Amnesty International accuses Turkey of firing on refugees at the Syrian border, and charges that the 1.6 million refugees within Turkey face destitution.
A study by UK-based Institute for Economics and Peace finds there were nearly 10,000 terrorist attacks in 2013, 44% more than the year before.
