ISIS seized Hawija during its 2014 offensive in northern Iraq that also resulted in the fall of the strategically important cities of Sinjar, Tal Afar, and Mosul.
Hawija (Arabic:الحويجة, Al Hawyjah; Kurdish "hawij" for wild carrot) is the centre of Al-Hawija District in the Kirkuk province of Iraq, 30 miles south of Kirkuk, and north of Baghdad.
Hawija district has approximately 450,000 inhabitants, about 98 percent of them Sunni Arabs and the rest mostly Sunni Turkmens. Most of the inhabitants live in rural areas.