Fifth anniversary of the barbaric ISIS-invasion of the Khabour Region

Khabur, Syria – Today marks the 5th anniversary of the barbaric invasion of the Khabur Region. On 23 February 2015, terrorist organization ISIS launched a violent and vicious attack on the Syriac-Assyrian villages of the Khabur Region, one of the last bastions of Syriacs-Assyrians in the Gozarto Province (Jazeera). The Syriac Military Council responded to the terrorist attack and protected their people until their last breath.

The fifth anniversary brings back painful memories for Chaldeans-Syriacs-Assyrians. The ISIS attack caused the displacement and kidnapping of many of thousands of Assyrians, including women, elderly and children, and the martyrdom of Syriac Military Council fighters and heroes.

Five years have passed since this traumatic event. Today, the Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian people remember the sorrowful event of devastation caused by ISIS to their villages. It is the umpteenth attempt to wipe out this indigenous people from their Mesopotamian heartlands. In the latter days of the Ottoman Empire hundred of thousands of Chaldeans-Syriacs-Assyrians were murdered in what is current day Turkey. Many fled south and settled in the Gozarto Region in northeastern Syria. Others fled to Iraq. In 1933 they were victim of yet another massacre in Simele in northern Iraq. The Assyrians again had to flee and now settled in Syria, on the banks of the Khabur River.

Today, the villages in Khabur and Gozarto are again subject to brutal Turkish attacks that started on the of 9th October 2019. Turkey continues targeting the Assyrian villages and towns with artillery and air power in its attempt to restore the glories of the Ottoman Empire, to destroy the Democratic Autonomous Administration and to create zones on the Syrian-Turkish border to repatriate Syrian refugees.

The Syriac Military Council however, is fully mobilized in the Khabur Region to defend the Assyrian villages and towns, and it continues to confront the Turkish aggression and state terrorism targeting the Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian in their homeland of Bethnahrin (Mesopotamia).

Short message (Arabic) on the current fight and the Region by Syriac Military Council’s Abgar Yacoub.