Paul KeenanChristians have joined the fight against IS, writes Paul Keenan
At a first and surface reading, the operation staged by Islamic State (IS) last week to abduct Assyrian Christians from their homes stands as yet another onslaught by the radical Islamist group against those declared enemies of its ideology.
Depending on the source of the rapidly breaking news at that time, IS forcibly removed anywhere between 150 and 350 Christians from 11 villages along the Khabur river in the north-eastern Syrian province of Hassakeh (bordering on Turkey and Iraq).
Fifteen were reportedly killed soon after, while 20 have been released. The first indications of the unfolding situation came as overseas relatives of the Christians telephoned their families amid reports of fighting in the area, only to hear voices on the line describe themselves as IS fighters with the promise to send their captives’ heads.
Numbers and details remain confounding at this point, but other details in those early reports give a far more important picture of events, and just why IS acted as it did.
Reports of fighting have proved accurate, with escapees from the Christian villages relating that prior to the invasion of their homes, artillery could be heard pounding nearby.
It has subsequently been reported that fighters of the Kurdish YPG – the Kurdish abbreviation for the People’s Protection Units – launched an intensive campaign against IS from the Iraqi side of the border and were putting the militants under severe pressure, with help from US airstrikes.
Clashes
The group has since claimed to have killed at least 130 IS members in the initial clashes and, more importantly, to have severed a vital supply line between the IS headquarters in Raqqa, Syria, and its stronghold in Mosul, Iraq.
Of much relevance to readers of this newspaper, however, is the mention in certain reports of a secondary group, backing the YPG and responsible for much of the successes since last week.
Formed in 2013, the Syriac Military Council, or MFS from its abbreviated Aramaic title, is a predominately Assyrian Christian body which established itself to fight the corner of that minority community in Syria’s civil conflict, firstly against the advances of al Qaeda’s affiliate Jabhat al Nusra, and now against the excesses of IS.
In January 2014, MFS officially linked up with the YPG (and by extension the Free Syrian Army) and, again in the province of Hassakeh, launched a campaign to drive back Jabhat al Nusra in what proved to be a stalled and largely unsuccessful offensive.
Crucially, many of the MFS fighters were drawn from that very province and have remained as a beleaguered defence force ever since.
Jumping forward to the present, what has been witnessed in the latest campaign may well be the first coordinated Christian backlash against IS.
This perspective throws a very different light on the IS kidnappings – not to mention the militant ‘hissy fit’ in Mosul which saw IS members (after eight months of occupation) smashing Assyrian relics in a museum there under the guise of ridding the world of false idols (for the record, IS is not slow to trade in such artefacts via illicit dealers in Lebanon towards raising funds for its campaign).
Again, a first reading of the abductions suggests that the Assyrian Christians have been taken in order to serve as the means of IS revenge for MFS gains. And, while it is all too easy to envisage another slew of mass beheadings, this is not the only conclusion to be drawn.
While early reports indicated that Christians were transported some 120kms south from Hassakeh to Abdul Aziz mountain, another report, from a secretive blogger within Raqqa, operating under the title ‘Raqqa is Being Slaughtered in Silence’, stated that kidnapped Christians have been transported the 240kms to be held there. The idea of human shields against further advances suddenly becomes a possibility.
IS has every reason to worry about such an eventuality, for, behind the growing MSF comes an indication that an even stronger Christian force is rising.
Over much of the last week, the internet has been awash with the exploits of one Matthew VanDyke, a self-styled revolutionary who documented his previous exploits in Libya on camera, where he fought against the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, before progressing to Syria.
Now in Iraq, and in the Kurdish controlled region to the north, VanDyke’s relative fame has brought a light onto the grouping he is now working with towards making it battle ready.
The Nineveh Plains Protections Unit (NPU) is a military body formed in June of 2014 as IS stormed the Iraqi lands which are home to the Assyrian Christians (including Mosul). Coverage at the time related the flight of Christians deeper into the barren areas of the Plains to escape IS’s unstoppable advance and their desperate plight as a consequence.
Those events of mid-2014 have been galvanising for the Assyrians.
As they watched the Iraqi Army flee ahead of the wave of refugees, Assyrians came to realise that if they were to secure their homeland and continued existence in Iraq, they would have to take the struggle upon themselves. And they have done so. As the YPG/MFS campaign got underway, the first batch of NPU soldiers completed their formal military training just kilometres from the front line (with financial funding pouring in from the international Assyrian community).
Experience
Fired up by personal experience of IS actions, and the hardening knowledge that their wives and children are already slaves to the militants, the NPU men are ready for their own onslaught against IS. One further fact is worth mentioning; where the MFS was able to draw hundreds of fighters from the minority Syrian community, the NPU is preparing thousands from inside Iraq, held up only by the small number of expert trainers currently on hand to prepare them.
With the horrors already faced sufficient for the Assyrians to charge boldly into the fray, extra fuel for the fight was offered in January, when the Iraqi government decreed the establishment of a new province within the country, that of the Nineveh Plains, specifically to serve as a legally defined homeland for the Assyrian community when it throws off the militant yoke.
The message for IS is clear: the Christians are coming.