The Assyrians are the indigenous people of Iraq and indeed of all Upper Mesopotamia. Their history as a nation with its historic capital in Nineveh (site of modern-day Mosul), and as a powerful empire, stretches back some five millennia. The Bible records (in the book of Jonah) that the Assyrians embraced Yahweh, the God of Israel, at the preaching of a very reluctant missionary named Jonah. Upon hearing the Good News about Jesus the Christ/Messiah, the Assyrians believed. The Assyrian Church of the East is the first Christian denomination ever established. Once a mighty military empire, as Christians the Assyrians became a mighty missionary empire, taking the Gospel east through Central Asia, and by the 6thC, into China.
Arab armies invaded Mesopotamia in the 8th Century. Since then, the indigenous Assyrians have routinely been subjected to massacres and genocide at the hands of Arab, Kurd, Turks and, more recently, the transnational Islamic jihadists of Islamic State ((IS), previously Islamic State in Iraq and Syria/Sham (ISIS); previously Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), previously Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI)).
Numbering around 1.4 million in the 1980s, the Assyrian community went into decline after Gulf War One, in which the US humiliated its former ally, Saddam Hussein. Subsequently, not only did Saddam start playing the Islam card for political gain, he also joined (albeit secretly) with Iran (his former enemy) to support Islamic terrorist organisations which, they believed, they could use against the West.
Today, mere remnant of up to 200,000 Assyrians remains in Iraq. These genocide survivors – virtually all of whom are traumatised, displaced and destitute – are struggling to regain access to their homes and historic lands in the Nineveh Plains. They are caught in the middle of predatory, land grabbing Shi’ite Shabaks (Tehran’s proxies), and Kurdish nationalists eager to colonise and then annex the Nineveh Plains into a future Kurdish state. The situation is dire. It is a Christian Crisis of monumental proportions.
Additional news source specialising in all things Assyrian (news from Iraq, Syria, Turkey and the Diaspora): Assyrian International News Agency http://www.aina.org/
