Iraqi Christians take up arms to regain lost land

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al-monitor:

Christians formed armed units to regain land lost when the Ninevah Plains were invaded by the Islamic State (IS) in June 2014. Though the Yazidi and Christian minorities of the plains distrust the Iraqi federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), this step was still unexpected of a peaceful group. However, the Christians’ actions fit in with the prevailing atmosphere: Everyone in Iraq is now armed.

Since early this year, Christians who were displaced from Ninevah to the Kurdish areas have formed militias in affiliation with the KRG’s Ministry of Peshmerga, while other Christian groups from different Iraqi areas are under the management of the state-sponsored Popular Mobilization Units.

Christians are no longer following a policy of noninvolvement in ethnic conflicts and armed clashes. They now are considering various options without excluding the idea of cooperation with the federal government and the KRG.

The Christians are well-aware that others, whether Arabs or Kurds, have goals for the lands that are not necessarily aligned with their interests.

Iraqi Christian Zafer Nouh, editor of Al-Fikr al-Masihi magazine, told Al-Monitor, “Our regions in the Ninevah Plains are considered part of the disputed lands between the federal government and the KRG. The Kurds see them as Kurdish regions that have to be annexed onto the KRG map, while the federal government believes they are under its administrative control, even if they are practically under Kurdish influence.”

By forming armed groups, Christians could be seeking to create a special status and participate in the conflict raging between the two major groups over the division of Iraq.

In this regard, Yaacoub Korkees, an Assyrian member of the Iraqi Parliament, said in May, “If they want to divide this country into Sunni, Kurdish and Shiite states, then we will call for a fourth state, that is a Christian state.”

Forming these forces could pave the way for hundreds of Assyrian Christians from abroad to join their brethren fighting in Iraq for the Ninevah Plains. Christians in the diaspora might also consider creating a Christians-only region in the plains, an idea that Christian organizations abroad support.

In this context, Christian armed units have several options. They may form:

  • under the peshmerga to fight for certain regions that would then be under KRG control,
  • under the federal government’s control for the same purpose and establish their own governorate in the Ninevah Plains, or
  • push for their region’s independence under international management or with guarantees by the international community to protect their independent status.

All those avenues would be difficult to pursue, which explains the deep-rooted internal conflict between Christian political movements and Christian religious leaders in Iraq.

“The Iraqi Christians have the absolute right to self-defense,” Patriarch Louis Sako, head of the Chaldean Church in Iraq, told Al-Monitor. “However, protection should be provided by the state that is responsible for protecting and defending all its citizens. As for establishing militias based on ethnic and religious affiliations, this would destroy the country.”

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Now, you watch.
This violence the media will cover.
It forms the basis for Muslim retaliation.
Recall, once Islam controls a place, it is loathe to ever give it up.
See how Islam still demands Spain be returned to Islamic control.

The US MSM media? Most of them are hardly covering anything.