while intermarriage between the Yazidis and Arabs of Sinjar was rare, interviewees recalled man friendships and working relationships across the two communities, underlining the nuanced nature of the relationships in Sinjar prior to the attack. In its aftermath, while some individual relationships have survived, the two communities have become deeply estranged
in June 2014, ISIS seized Mosul, rattling the Sinjar region that then lay in between ISIS-controlled areas of Iraq and Syria. In the months prior to the attack on Sinjar, ISIS began to take control of increasingly large areas in Syria and Iraq, culminating in sizeable offensives in August 2014. The Iraqi Kurdish forces, the Peshmerga, maintained bases and checkpoints throughout the Sinjar region and were the only security force in the region on 3 August 2014.