ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iraq on Wednesday marked the 12th anniversary of the fall of Mosul to the Islamic State (ISIS), an occupation that ended three years later and saw the jihadists commit brutal atrocities against the population.

ISIS captured Mosul on June 10, 2014, as part of a blitz campaign across swathes of northern, central, and western Iraq that ended with the militants occupying significant population centers and strategic territories, including the border strip with Syria.

“Those terrorist gangs committed the most heinous crimes against our people,” Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi said on its anniversary. “They overran cities and villages, shed the blood of innocent civilians, violated sanctities and holy sites, and left behind thousands of martyrs, wounded, and missing persons.”

Honoring the fallen, Zaidi labeled the defeat of ISIS as an “enduring national epic that culminated in the liberation of the land and the defeat of terrorism.”

On December 10, 2017, then-Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared Victory Day over ISIS, after Iraqi and Kurdish forces, supported by a US-led international coalition, seized back full territorial control from the jihadists.

During the militants’ brutal reign, tens of thousands of people were killed, and countless atrocities were committed, primarily targeting vulnerable minority communities such as the Yazidis and Christians. Shiite Muslim communities in northern Iraq were also the subject of attacks.

The last urban centers to be retaken by Iraqi forces were in the western parts of the vast Anbar province, first al-Qaim and then Rawa, in November 2017.

With the Iraqi army facing collapse and rapidly losing territory to ISIS in June 2024, and with the militants closing in on Baghdad, Iraq’s highest Shiite authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, declared a fatwa, a religious call to action, urging young Iraqis to take up arms against ISIS.

The Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) soon emerged from Sistani’s call, after a loose group of militias united to fight ISIS. The PMF has since been integrated into the Iraqi security apparatus, although many of its components continue to operate with impunity and reportedly maintain strong ties to Iran.

“We renew our pledge to preserve the victory achieved through the blood of the martyrs and the sacrifices of heroes and to continue strengthening the capabilities of our armed forces and security agencies,” Zaidi asserted.