At the end of August 2014, following a threemonth siege by the armed group Islamic State (also known as ISIS), Iraqi and United States air strikes and ground operations by pro-government Shia militias and Iraqi and Kurdish government ground forces pushed ISIS away from Amerli, a Shia Turkoman and Sunni Arab town in Salah al-Din province. Except for sporadic clashes, the area hassince remained largely free of ISIS fighters. Following the operations to end the Amerli siege, pro-government militias and volunteer fighters as well as Iraqi security forces raided Sunni villages and neighborhoods around Amerli in Salah al-Din and Kirkuk provinces. Many were villages that ISIS had passed through and in some cases used as bases for their attack on Amerli. During the raids, militiamen, volunteer fighters and Iraqi security forces looted possessions of civilians who fled fighting during the onslaught on Amerli; burned homes and businesses of the villages’ Sunni residents; and used explosives and heavy equipment to destroy individual buildings or entire villages. Human Rights Watch documented the abduction of 11 men in the course of the government’s operation, but local residents said many other men of fighting age had gone missing.