WASHINGTON -- When the Obama administration began military action against the Islamic State back in August 2014, one of its stated goals was to defend Iraq's Yazidi religious minority from mass killings by the militant group. Almost a year later, hundreds of thousands of Yazidis have fled their historic homes in northwestern Iraq to escape what many argue is a genocide perpetrated by the Islamic State. After successfully conquering the Yazidi areas of Iraq in August, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, summarily executed hundreds of Yazidi men over the age of 14 and took hundreds of women as hostages.