Amerli, Iraq

"The people of Amerli are reaching the end of their strength and the Islamic State's jackals are waiting for their chance to overrun the town."
"[Amerli is now a] hellish cauldron where 12,000 people are being starved and bombed by ISIS."
"By the U.S. lifting its little finger, two or three drone strikes are going to save 12,000 people, that's what makes what is happening there so uniquely dreadful. This is Iraq's other humanitarian crisis, the one no one seems to care about."
"On a daily basis, the attacks are mainly of the harassment kind, firing rockets in, shooting at helicopters if they arrive and trying to catch anyone who leaves and kill them. Occasionally, [ISIS] will do a bit of thrusts, usually at night, and try to overrun the place."
"It is a town of fighters and farmers, there is a big military cemetery in the town going back to the old Ottoman days. Almost every official in Amerli is a former Iraqi army officer with significant Iran-Iraq war background."
"The reality is that U.S. airpower and Kurdish forces, working with local Turkmen volunteers, could relieve Amerli in a day. The distance between Amerli and safety in the Kurdistan region is currently the same as the drive from the White House to the Pentagon."
Michael Knights, specialist, military and security affairs of Iraq, Iran and the Persian Gulf

ALI AL-BAYATI/AFP/Getty Images   A Iraqi Turkmen Shiite fighter, who volunteered to join the government forces, holds a position on August 4, 2014 in Amerli, some 160 kilometres north of Baghdad, as the city has been completely surrounded by Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham militants for more than six weeks.

The article, quoted from above, written by Mr. Knights and appearing in the journal Foreign Policy, sketches out a living horror for the people of Amerli whose plight has been overshadowed by the tens of thousands of Yazidis escaping if they could, the death threats of ISIS, taking refuge on Mount Sinjar, and finally making their way down the mountain where many children starved and died of dehydration from the absence of water in stifling heat.

A few hundred fighters armed with AK47s have been holding out against the Islamic jihadis for months. To date, 31 other towns and villages have fallen to the Islamists, all located fairly close to Amerli. The men manning the barricades in Amerli know of a certainty they will be slaughtered and the women of the town will become slaves should the ISIS forces overtake Amerli.

The town is situated 180 kilometres north of Baghdad. The Iraqi army is a mere 30 km distant from Amerli, but fails to act in the face of the Islamic State of Iraq & Al Sham presence. And while U.S. airstrikes could dispell the threat to Amerli, no action has been taken. Since June 20 Amerli has been alone in its battle to fight off ISIS attacks; the town representing the last bastion of 31 Shiite villages in the area.

The population of the town is comprised of Shiite Turkmen, most of whom are wheat and barley farmers. But the town has a strong military tradition, its people persecuted by former Iraqi dictator-thug, Saddam Hussein. The town's inhabitants are detested by the Sunni terrorists. In 2007 Al-Qaeda militias attacked Amerli with a truck bomb, killing 159 civilians, wounding over 350 and levelling dozens of houses and shops.

"It was a megabomb, one of the biggest explosions, if not the biggest, ever to happen in Iraq", explained Mr. Knights "Now, the latest incarnation of murderous jihadists is back to finish the job." Power to the town was cut by ISIS in July, and water supplies were stopped two days afterward leaving the town with a limited amount of well water. In the 50C heat the sick and young began to die.

Iraqi military helicopters making twice-weekly deliveries of humanitarian supplies to the town come under rocket fire from ISIS. Some 400 men armed with AK47 machine guns are there to fight off the attacks. "There is nowhere to run to. They either have to die in place or get massacred", said Mr. Knights.

"Is nobody going to help them out of this death trap?" asked Ali Al Bayati, who heads a Turkmen rights group.