Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday morning that ISIS, or Daesh as he called them, is guilty of committing genocide against Yazidis, Christians, and Shiite Muslims.
"Daesh is genocidal by self-proclamation, by ideology, and by actions," Kerry said in a televised address. ”We must recognize what Daesh is doing to its victims.”
Kerry also said the group is responsible for crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.
The Obama Administration has been slow in declaring the Islamic State’s actions genocidal, likely because of the political and moral obligations attached to it.
The only other time the U.S. has used the term in an ongoing conflict was in 2004 when describing the atrocities committed in Darfur.
Watch Kerry denounce the actions of ISIS in the video below: