On Monday, the House of Representatives unanimously passed the non-binding measure calling on the Obama administration to declare atrocities against Christians, Izadi Kurds and other minorities "war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide."
ISIS terrorists, who were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, now control large parts of Iraq and Syria.
They have been carrying out horrific acts of violence such as public decapitations and crucifixions against all communities, including Shias, Sunnis, Izadi Kurds, and Christians, in the areas under their control.
The US Congress has given a March 17 deadline for the State Department to officially decide whether to issue a comprehensive genocide designation for the terrorist group.
State Department Press Secretary John Kirby said that the department would reach a determination on the issue “soon.”
Republican Ed Royce, the chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, called on the administration of President Barack Obama not to "drag out" a decision.
He said ISIS is “guilty of genocide,” which “has been using mass murder, beheadings, crucifixions, rape, torture and enslavement in its deliberate campaign to eliminate religious minorities and bulldoze their history."
The House of Representatives on Monday also overwhelmingly voted -- 392 to 3 -- in favor of a second resolution, which calls on the White House to urge the UN Security Council to establish a Syrian war crimes tribunal, describing actions by the terrorist groups as well as by the Syrian government "gross violations of international law amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity."
"What is happening in Iraq and Syria is a deliberate, systematic targeting of religious and ethnic minorities," said Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan.
"Today, the House unanimously voted to call ISIS's atrocities what they are: a genocide,” Ryan said.
Since March 2011, the US and its regional allies, in particular Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, have been conducting a proxy war against the Syrian people and government.
According to a February report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the years-long conflict has claimed the lives of some 470,000 people, injured 1.9 million others, and displaced nearly half of the country’s pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond its borders.
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