This post covers two different kinds of perpetrator. Mixing them up does not help the dead. It just makes the record easier to dismiss.
First: armed groups that, after 2014, fought under a Salafi-jihadist or al-Qaeda-lineage banner — the Islamic State and its provinces, Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province, and Syria’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)–rooted authorities after Bashar al-Assad fell.
Second: the Islamic Republic of Iran, a UN member state whose ideological army is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), with the Basij militia under IRGC command. This is not a roaming caliphate. It is a Shia theocracy killing people on its own soil. Iranian protesters have sometimes shouted that the Basij and IRGC are their Islamic State. That is a political insult with a point. It is not a legal identity.
The 1948 Genocide Convention is a high bar. It requires intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Below, “genocide” appears only where a named government or UN commission used it. Massacre, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, and persecution are named as such.
This piece does not cover Saddam Hussein’s Anfal campaign, the 1971 Bangladesh war, or Ottoman-era mass killing. Those happened. They were not ISIS. Reddit threads are not used as evidence: Wikipedia’s own reliable-sources list treats Reddit as user-generated and generally unreliable.
Yazidis: the case that meets the legal test
On 3 August 2014, ISIS swept the Sinjar region. Men and older boys were separated from women and children. Those who refused conversion were shot. Families who fled onto Mount Sinjar were trapped without water. Women and girls, some as young as nine, were sold as slaves. Boys were taken to training camps. Shrines were blown up.
ISIS did not hide the motive. It called Yazidis a pagan minority whose women could be enslaved as spoils of war. That paper trail is why investigators could prove intent.
In June 2016 the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria published They Came to Destroy: ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis. The Commission concluded that ISIS was committing genocide, as well as crimes against humanity and war crimes. Chair Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro said genocide had occurred and was ongoing. See the OHCHR press release, plus Wikipedia’s entries on the Yazidi genocide and the Sinjar massacre.
Three months earlier, on 17 March 2016, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Daesh was “genocidal by self-proclamation, by ideology, and by actions” against Yezidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims. — State Department remarks
Who held power: the self-proclaimed Islamic State under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, holding parts of Ninewa in Iraq and Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor in Syria. Not a UN member. A terrorist proto-state.
How many: A 2017 PLOS Medicine household survey estimated about 3,100 killed and 6,800 kidnapped in the August 2014 attack. — Cetorelli et al.
Community and later tallies run higher: often 5,000 or more killed and about 6,400 abducted. The Washington Institute has reported estimates of more than 10,000 killed, 60-plus mass graves, 70 shrines destroyed, and more than 200,000 displaced from Sinjar. — WINEP
If you need one post-2014 file that a UN commission called genocide, this is it.
Christians: emptied cities, filmed beheadings
Christians in Iraq and Syria did not wait until 2014 to be hunted. Al-Qaeda’s Iraqi franchise had already attacked churches. ISIS then turned expulsion into policy.
After Mosul fell in June 2014, fighters marked Christian houses, demanded conversion, flight, or jizya, looted churches, and turned some into offices or weapons stores. — Persecution of Christians by the Islamic State
In February 2015, ISIS took about 220 Assyrian Christians from villages along Syria’s Khabur River. Three were later killed on video. Most of the others were ransomed or released in stages. — BBC
On a Libyan beach in 2015, ISIS-Libya beheaded 21 Coptic (and one Ghanaian) Christian migrant workers and filmed it. — 21 Coptic Christian Martyrs of Libya; USCIRF
Iraq’s indigenous Christian community — Assyrian, Chaldean, Syriac — is often estimated at 1 to 1.5 million before 2003 and a few hundred thousand after ISIS. The collapse began with the post-2003 insurgency. ISIS then emptied Mosul and the Ninewa Plain. Kerry’s 2016 finding named Christians. The UN Commission’s genocide report was written for Yazidis. Both things can be true. — Christianity in Iraq
Nigeria is a second front, not a copy of Sinjar. Boko Haram and later ISWAP have massacred Christians and Muslims who reject them, burned churches, and abducted schoolgirls. The Chibok kidnapping of 14–15 April 2014 took 276 mostly Christian schoolgirls. The wider war has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions. There is no UN General Assembly genocide verdict for Nigerian Christians. The religious targeting is still documented. — Boko Haram; Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping
Kurds: ISIS’s enemies, not a second “Kurdish genocide”
ISIS fought the Peshmerga and the YPG/YPJ, overran Sinjar (many Yazidis speak Kurdish), and tried to take Kobani.
On 25–26 June 2015, ISIS sent suicide bombers and gunmen into Kurdish-held Kobani and killed civilians in their homes. Human Rights Watch documented deliberate attacks on people the fighters knew were civilians. — Kobanî massacre; HRW, 3 July 2015
Keep the files separate. When the victims were Yazidi, the UN genocide finding applies. When the victims were Kurdish Muslims killed as enemies or as a hostile town, the charges are war crimes and crimes against humanity. No UN commission has certified a post-2014 genocide of “the Kurds” as a people.
Hindus: attacks, not a second Sinjar
There is no post-2014 campaign on the Sinjar scale aimed at destroying Hindus as a people.
Islamic State Khorasan did attack Afghanistan’s remaining Sikh and Hindu minority. On 25 March 2020 it struck Gurdwara Har Rai Sahib in Kabul. The congregation was Sikh; Afghanistan’s last Hindus live in the same tiny, hunted space. — 2020 Kabul gurdwara attack
In Pakistan and Bangladesh after 2014, Hindus have faced temple attacks, blasphemy lynchings, and forced conversions of girls, especially in Sindh. The perpetrators are often local militants, criminal networks, and mobs — sometimes Islamist, rarely the 2014 caliphate. Advocates sometimes say “genocide.” Courts and UN bodies generally have not. — Persecution of Hindus
Alawites: the Syrian coast, March 2025
Assad’s fall did not end sectarian killing. It changed who held the guns.
In March 2025, after clashes with Assadist gunmen, fighters tied to Syria’s transitional government — led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly Abu Mohammad al-Jolani of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, al-Qaeda’s old Syrian branch — swept the coastal mountains. Reporting also names government-aligned units, Syrian National Army factions, and local Sunni gunmen. Alawites are a heterodox community long denounced as heretics by some Sunni jurists. Revenge against Assad’s base and anti-Alawite ideology ran together.
Survivors described identity checks — “Are you Alawi?” — then executions, looting, and arson in Latakia, Tartus, Homs, and Hama.
A Reuters investigation counted 1,479 Alawites killed in that March wave across 40 sites. A Syrian government fact-finding committee later reported 1,426 dead in the broader March violence. — 2025 massacres of Syrian Alawites; Reuters investigation; How Reuters counted
The Washington Institute noted that most civilians killed by government forces in that wave were Alawites; a few Christians were also confirmed dead. — WINEP
This is a documented sectarian massacre by forces of a government whose leadership came out of a jihadist insurgency. It is not a completed UN genocide judgment.
Druze: Jaramana, Sahnaya, then Suwayda
The same transitional year hit Syria’s Druze.
In late April and May 2025, violence struck Jaramana and Sahnaya in the Damascus countryside. In July it exploded in Suwayda. Interior and Defense deployments, Bedouin tribal fighters, and, in some accounts, men in army fatigues were involved. Druze theology is esoteric; many Sunni hardliners have never treated it as Islam. The government denied a policy of destroying the Druze. Reuters, Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, and later the UN Commission documented executions of unarmed captives and identity interrogation.
Amnesty documented 46 Druze — 44 men and two women — deliberately shot in one investigation, a floor, not a census. — Amnesty, September 2025
In March 2026 the UN Commission of Inquiry reported that the July 2025 Suwayda violence killed more than 1,700 people and displaced nearly 200,000, with government forces, tribal fighters, and other actors implicated and possible war crimes cited. — OHCHR; UN News; Reuters; April 2025 massacres of Syrian Druze
Massacre, possible war crimes, possible crimes against humanity. “Genocide” is still a claim, not a finished international judgment.
Iranians: ISIS bombed Tehran. The IRGC has massacred Iranians.
No jihadist group after 2014 set out to destroy “Iranians” as a nation. On 7 June 2017, ISIS hit the Iranian Parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran. Dozens died. That is urban terrorism, not genocide. — 2017 Tehran attacks
The much larger body count is home-grown. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei sits at the top. The IRGC is the regime’s ideological army. The Basij is its street militia. Law Enforcement (FARAJA) and the Intelligence Ministry work beside them. Crackdowns are joint operations. IRGC commanders have been named, sanctioned, and filmed on the streets.
This is state killing of citizens, often under an internet blackout. Amnesty, the UN, and later fact-finding missions have used crimes against humanity for parts of this record. They have not issued a 1948-Convention genocide finding against “the Iranian people.”
1988: the prison massacre (the template)
In July–September 1988, on orders from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, “death commissions” sent thousands of political prisoners to the gallows — many already serving sentences. Amnesty calls this a continuing crime against humanity and has used a floor of about 5,000. Higher partisan claims exist and are not independently verified. This predates 2014. It is here because it is the regime’s original mass killing, and several officials later rose high in the same system. — 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners; Amnesty, Blood-Soaked Secrets; Human Rights Watch
November 2019: Bloody Aban and Mahshahr
A fuel-price rise on 15 November 2019 brought people into the streets. The regime shut the internet. Reuters, citing three Iranian officials, reported that Khamenei told security chiefs to do “whatever it takes,” and that about 1,500 people were killed in less than two weeks. Amnesty later named 321 of the dead — a documented floor, not a census. — Reuters special report; Amnesty, 321 deaths; 2019–2020 Iranian protests
In Mahshahr, Khuzestan, IRGC units hunted protesters in the marshes with machine guns. The U.S. State Department later said the regime killed as many as 148 civilians there. — Mahshahr massacre; State Department commemoration
Methods: rooftop snipers, live fire into crowds, mass arrests, torture, and a nationwide digital blackout.
January 2020: Flight PS752
On 8 January 2020 the IRGC shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 after takeoff from Tehran, killing all 176 on board — many of them Iranians and dual nationals. The regime lied for days, then admitted it. — Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752
2022: Woman, Life, Freedom — and Bloody Friday in Zahedan
On 13 September 2022, morality police detained 22-year-old Mahsa (Jina) Amini, a Sunni Kurd from Saqqez, for her hijab. She died in custody on 16 September. Nationwide protests followed. Women cut their hair and burned scarves. Security forces answered with pellets to the face, live rounds, rape in detention, and hangings after sham trials.
Iran Human Rights later verified 551 protesters killed, including 68 children and 49 women, plus executions of captured protesters. — Iran Human Rights, one-year report; Mahsa Amini protests
Zahedan, 30 September 2022 — “Bloody Friday.” After Friday prayers, security forces fired from rooftops on Baluch worshippers and protesters. Amnesty found they unlawfully killed at least 66, and reported at least 82 Baluch dead in the crackdown, including children. — Amnesty; 2022 Zahedan massacre
The UN later established a Fact-Finding Mission. Survivors and UN experts have described the crackdown as crimes against humanity. — OHCHR
December 2025–January 2026: the deadliest crackdown in decades
A new protest wave from late December 2025 was met with live fire and communications shutdowns. Numbers are still a range, because the regime blacked out the country.
- Amnesty called January 2026 the deadliest period of repression in decades of its Iran research, with the toll in the thousands. — Amnesty
- HRANA, cited by Reuters, verified 2,571 deaths by mid-January, then 3,308 with thousands more under review. — Reuters, 14 January 2026
- An Iranian official told Reuters the confirmed toll was more than 5,000. — Reuters, 18 January 2026; 2025–2026 Iran massacres
- A UK Home Office country bulletin compiled estimates running much higher. Treat those as an upper bound under investigation, not a completed forensic census. — UK government bulletin
Whatever the final number, this wave dwarfs 2019 and 2022.
What the record actually shows
| Group | Episode | Who held power | Scale | What it has been called |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yazidis | Sinjar, 2014–17 | ISIS | ~3,100 killed / ~6,800 kidnapped in one survey; higher community estimates | UN + U.S.: genocide |
| Christians | Mosul, Khabur, Libya, Nigeria | ISIS; Boko Haram / ISWAP | Community collapse in Iraq; 21 beheaded in Libya; Chibok 276 | U.S. 2016: genocide (ISIS) |
| Kurds | Kobani; ISIS war | ISIS | Hundreds in named massacres | War crimes; Yazidi subset is genocide |
| Hindus | Kabul gurdwara, 2020 | ISIS-K | Dozens | Terrorism / persecution |
| Alawites | Syrian coast, Mar 2025 | HTS-led transitional forces | Reuters 1,479 | Massacre |
| Druze | Suwayda, 2025 | Gov-aligned + Bedouin | UN: 1,700+ killed | Massacre / possible war crimes |
| Iranians | ISIS in Tehran, 2017 | ISIS | Dozens | Terrorism |
| Iranians | 1988 prisons | Khomeini; death commissions | Thousands; Amnesty ~5,000 floor | Crimes against humanity |
| Iranians | Nov 2019 / Mahshahr | Khamenei; IRGC, Basij, police | Reuters ~1,500; Amnesty 321 named; Mahshahr up to 148 | Massacre / unlawful killings |
| Iranians | PS752, Jan 2020 | IRGC | 176 | Shootdown of a civilian airliner |
| Iranians | Woman, Life, Freedom 2022 | Morality police, IRGC, Basij, LEF | ~551 protesters; Zahedan 66–82 in one day | UN FFM: crimes against humanity |
| Iranians | Dec 2025–Jan 2026 | IRGC, Basij, security forces | Thousands; HRANA 2,500–3,300+ verified; official 3,000–5,000+ | Mass killing; investigations ongoing |
A few rules of thumb keep the words honest.
ISIS published slave doctrine and produced the only post-2014 UN genocide finding in this set (Yazidis), plus a U.S. finding that also named Christians and Shia. Boko Haram and ISWAP are jihadist; their war is enormous; it has also killed many Muslims. HTS-rooted Damascus in 2025 presided over Alawite and Druze mass killings — Islamist-origin state violence after a civil war, not the 2014 caliphate.
The IRGC is something else: the armed core of a revolutionary Islamist state that has, repeatedly, opened fire on Iranians — Kurds, Baluch, Arabs in Khuzestan, women, schoolchildren, and anyone in the street after a blackout. That is not a jihadist raid from Raqqa. It is the government of Iran.
Kurds were ISIS’s battlefield enemy; that is not the same as a plan to destroy “the Kurds.” Hindus do not have a post-2014 jihadist genocide file. Pretending every atrocity is the same crime makes the Yazidi case easier to dismiss.
Sources
Wikipedia (follow the footnotes on those pages to UN PDFs and books): Yazidi genocide · Sinjar massacre · Persecution of Christians by the Islamic State · 21 Coptic martyrs · Boko Haram · Kobanî massacre · 2025 Alawite massacres · 2025 Druze massacres · 1988 executions · 2019 protests · Mahshahr · Flight 752 · Mahsa Amini protests · Zahedan 2022 · 2025–2026 Iran massacres · Genocide Convention
Other sources used here: UN OHCHR / UN News; U.S. State Department (2016 genocide remarks; Mahshahr commemoration); PLOS Medicine; Reuters; Amnesty International; Human Rights Watch; Iran Human Rights; HRANA; Washington Institute; USCIRF; UK Home Office country bulletin.
Not used: Reddit.
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