The U.S. has made humanitarian air drops and prepared to give air support to out-gunned Peshmerga, whose recent retreats have left cities and key infrastructure exposed.
The combined efforts of the Iraqi and Kurdish governments have not rescued the thousands of civilians threatened with imminent death after the most recent ISIS offensive.
Many thousands of members of Iraq's Yezidi minority in Ninewa province are likely to die unless they can be rescued from extremist militants.
Syrian YPG, Iraqi Peshmerga have led a new force that retook Rabiaa from the so-called Islamic State, taking the fight to newly lost Sinjar and Zummar.
Insurgents control the area around Iraq's largest refinery, although their attacks have been consistently repelled by elite Iraqi commandos and helicopter gunships.
Militants have begun selling thousands of barrels per day of oil stolen from Iraq's traumatized energy infrastructure.
Hundreds of residents have fled to the undeveloped gas field for relative safety as the fight in Anbar continues.
After gaining new territory, Kurdish forces are providing badly needed security – but in volatile border towns like Tuz Khurmatu, they face tensions with locals and battles with insurgents.
Militants came within 2 kilometers of a major natural gas field before elite counter-terrorism forces arrived by helicopter.
A small contingent of elite counter-terrorism forces were losing their grip on Iraq's largest refinery after hundreds of Iraqi Army soldiers fled.
