When World Watch Monitor reported on the renewed fervor for the creation of a Christian-governed province in Iraq’s Nineveh Plains, we noted how some Christian refugees from the violence of the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” had formed paramilitary units to help Kurdish Peshmerga forces. Now Mint Press News has posted an up-close look at two Assyrian Iraqis on patrol within deadly distance of IS militants. An accompanying video shows the unit, organized by the Assyrian Patriotic Party, patrolling a town that first was invaded, then abandoned, by IS forces.
“Our message to the Islamic State is to look up to the sky and ask God to forgive you and come back to the right way. If they don’t do this, then we will fight against them,” Mint Press News quotes one of the men, Waesh Toma, as saying.