An ISIS banner on the Temple Mount. Photo: Rahel Jaskow.

Supporters of the genocidal Islamic State, formerly ISIS, violently attacked Kurdish Yazidis living in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, according to Soeren Kern of the Gatestone Institute. German police say Muslim extremists stormed a restaurant in the German town of Herford last Thursday afternoon.

They tried to remove a poster calling for support of thousands of Yazidis in Iraq, who face the choice of converting to the Islamic State’s brand of Islam or death. Some 500 Yazidis have been killed by the Islamic State thus far, including some who have been buried alive, according to Iraqi authorities.

The Islamic State issued a fatwa on Saturday saying it will fight the Yazidis “until they become Muslim” and that they would be ineligible to pay the jizyah tax in exchange for their lives.

Thousands of Yazidis have been left stranded, dying of thirst and disease on Iraq’s Mount Sinjar. President Obama responded to their plight last week by ordering airdrops with emergency relief supplies.

Yazidis in the German restaurant, including its 30-year-old owner, were injured by the Muslim extremists in the brawl, which was fought using knives and bottles. Police arrested six people – five Chechen Salafists and a German Muslim convert. Two of the Salafists have been monitored by German intelligence, according to media reporting.

Around 300 Yazidis gathered in the town center several hours after the restaurant attack and clashed with a large group of hooded Salafists. Nearly 100 police reserves came in to restore order using copious amounts of pepper spray.

Most of Germany’s estimated 60,000 Yazidis live in North Rhine-Westphalia. Salafists comprise a minority among Germany’s 4. 3 million Muslims, but authorities have become increasingly concerned with young Muslims being seduced by Salafi jihadist ideology.

More than a dozen men from Herford have joined ISIS, and at least one was killed in the fighting.

A 27-year-old German jihadist from the city of Essen, believed to be fighting in Syria identified as Silvio K., also threatened to bomb an American nuclear-weapons depot near Koblenz. This shows that Germany “is still the focus of jihadist terrorism” and that those returning from Syria remain a threat, a German interior ministry spokesperson said.