The persecution of Yazidis has been ongoing since at least the 10th century. Yazidis are an endogamous and mostly Kurmanji-speaking minority, indigenous to Upper Mesopotamia. The Yazidi religion is regarded as devil worship by Islamists. Yazidis have been persecuted by the surrounding Muslims since the medieval ages, most notably by Safavids, Ottomans, neighbouring Muslim Arab and Kurdish tribes and principalities. After the 2014 Sinjar massacre of thousands of Yazidis by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Yazidis still face violence from the Turkish Armed Forces and its ally the Syrian National Army, as well as discrimination from the Kurdistan Regional Government.