As a result of the war, Iraq held its multi-party elections in 2005, and Nouri al-Maliki later became Prime Minister the following year. The Maliki government enacted policies that were widely seen as having the effect of alienating the country's Sunni minority, which worsened sectarian tensions. In 2014, ISIS launched a military offensive in Northern Iraq and later declared a worldwide Islamic caliphate, eliciting another military response from the United States and its allies. The Iraq War caused hundreds of thousands of civilian and military casualties (see estimates). The majority of the casualties occurred as a result of the insurgency and civil conflicts between 2004 and 2007.