300,000 - 400,000 (pre 2014 Isis invasion) [2][3] Iraqi Assyrians (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܥܝܪܐܩ, Arabic: آشوريو العراق, Kurdish: ئاشوورییەکانی عێراق) are an ethnic and linguistic minority group, indigenous to Upper Mesopotamia.

[6] A significant number have emigrated to the United States, notably to the Detroit[7] and Chicago; sizeable communities are also found in Sydney, Australia and Södertälje, Sweden.

[12] In 1894, the French diplomat Paul Cambon described the creation of Kurdish Hamidies regiments as "the official organization for pillage at the expense of Armenian Christians".

[13][better source needed] In 1924, the Muslim Kurds around Sheik Said "rose in revolt against the "atheist government of Ankara" and demanded autonomy, the restoration of religious laws and of the sultanate".

Kurds committed the slaughter "in which 65 Nestorian villages in northern Iraq were plundered and burned down, priests were tortured and Christians were forced to renounce their religion while others in Dohuk were deported and about a 100 were shot".

[15][better source needed] In 1843, Nestorians in the Tauris region refused to pay Kurds the jizya, and "by way of reprisal 4350 Nestroians were slaughtered, about 400 women and children were reduced to slavery and all their houses and churches destroyed".

[17][better source needed] Historians have noted that Bedir Khan Beg (also known as Bedirhan) called the Kurdish Muslims to fight a sacred war against the Assyrians and Armenians, and ordered to massacre and annihilate them.

While King Faisal had briefly left the country for medical reasons, the Minister of Interior, Hikmat Sulayman, adopted a policy aimed at a final solution of the "Assyrian problem".

The British, though represented by a powerful military presence as provided by the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1930, failed to intervene or allow the well-disciplined Assyrian Levies under their command to do so, and indeed helped whitewash the event at the League of Nations.

The Assyrian repression marked the entrance of the military into Iraqi politics, a pattern that has periodically re-emerged since 1958, and offered an excuse for enlarging conscription.

On 20 February 1972, the government passed the law to recognize the cultural rights of Assyrians by allowing Aramaic be taught schools in which the majority of pupils spoke that language in addition to Arabic.

According to the UK Immigration & Nationality Directorate "despite Tariq Aziz's lofty position in the Baghdad regime, Christians have little political influence in the Ba'ath government" (Sept.

In 1999, the Kurdistan Observer claimed that "the Central Government had warned the administration in the Kurdish region against allowing Turkoman, Assyrian, or Yazidi minority schools.

[25][26] After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq by US and its allies, the Coalition Provisional Authority disbanded the Iraqi military, security, and intelligence infrastructure of former President Saddam Hussein and began a process of "de-Baathification".

[28][29] Social unrest and chaos resulted in the unprovoked persecution of Assyrians in Iraq mostly by Islamic extremists (both Shia and Sunni) and Kurdish nationalists (ex.

[30][31] On 1 August 2004 a series of car bomb attacks took place during the Sunday evening Mass in churches in Baghdad and Mosul, killing and wounding a large number of Christians.

[34] In 2010, Sunni Islamist groups attacked a Syrian Catholic church in Baghdad during Sunday evening Mass on 31 October, killing more than 60 and wounding 78 Iraqi Christians.

By early August 2004 this persecution included church bombings, and fundamentalist groups' enforcement of Muslim codes of behavior upon Christians, e.g., banning alcohol, forcing women to wear hijab.

Other prominent Assyrian leaders who were killed by Kurdish nationalists include Patriarch Mar Shimun, Franso Hariri, Margaret George (one of the first female Peshmerga) and Francis Shabo.

[25] An example of Kurdification is the attack on the Assyrian town Rabatki in 2013 by General Aref al-Zebari and his brother Habib al-Hares Zabari, reportedly by Kurdish peshmerga soldiers.

"[54] The publication of satirical cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005 led to an increase in violence against the Assyrian community.

"[55] Many Assyrians in Iraq now feel like "Westerners should not give wild statements [as] everyone can attack us [in response]" and "Today I'm afraid to walk the streets, because I'm Christian.

"[55] Also on 29 January, a Muslim Cleric in the Iraqi city of Mosul issued a fatwa stating, "Expel the (Assyrian) Crusaders and infidels from the streets, schools, and institutions because they have offended the person of the prophet.

[56] On 6 February, leaflets were distributed in Ramadi, Iraq, by the militant group "The Military Wing for the Army of Justice" demanding that Christians "halt their religious rituals in churches and other worship places because they insulted Islam and Muslims.

A previously unknown Baghdad-based group, Kataab Ashbal Al-Islam Al-Salafi (Islamic Salafist Boy Scout Battalions)[Note 1] threatened to kill all Christians in Iraq if the Pope does not apologize to Muhammad within three days.

"[63] The Iraqi militia Jaish al-Mujahedin (Holy Warriors' Army) announced its intention to "destroy their cross in the heart of Rome… and to hit the Vatican.

"[64] Despite the Pope's comments dying down in the media, attacks on Assyrian Christians continued and on 9 October Islamic extremist group kidnapped priest Paulos Iskander in Mosul.

[65] The relatives of the Christian priest who was beheaded three days later in Mosul, have said that his Muslim captors had demanded his church condemn the pope's recent comments about Islam and pay a $350,000 ransom.

[70][71] Iraqi vice-president Tariq al-Hashimi expressed his "closeness to Christians", whom he called "brothers" in the face of this "attack that changed their joy to sadness and anxiety".

[76] Youssef Adel, a Syriac Orthodox priest with Saint Peter's Church in Baghdad's Karada neighbourhood, was killed by gunmen while travelling in a car on 5 April 2008.