John Kerry deems ISIS's actions against minority groups to be genocide

(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

last updated 18 March 2016

Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday that the U.S. has determined ISIS' actions against Christians and other minority groups in Iraq and Syria to be genocide.

"My purpose here today is to assert in my judgment, [ISIS] is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control including Yazidis, Christians, and Shiite Muslims," Kerry said during a Thursday morning State Department news conference. "Daesh is genocidal by self-proclamation, by ideology, and by actions, and what it says, what it believes, by what it does," he added, using the alternate, less-offensive acronym for the group.

Kerry's proclamation marks the first time the U.S. has declared a genocide since the war in Darfur, Sudan, in 2004. Though the House had unanimously passed a resolution on Monday labeling the ISIS atrocities as genocide, the State Department had hesitated to use the term, as America has historically done because it "carries with it political, moral, and some legal obligations," Politico reports. Kerry's announcement just barely met Congress' Thursday deadline for the State Department to decide whether it would label ISIS' actions genocide.