Growing Iranian Influence Threatens Iraqi Christians https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/politics-current-affairs/2020/06/growing-iranian-influence-threatens-iraqi-christians/

June 12, 2020 | Uzay Bulut
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The conquest of much of Iraq by Islamic State (IS) had a devastating effect on the country’s Christian population, most of whom identify as Assyrians. While the survivors have managed to rebuild some of their communities, many are now threatened by the Iran-backed militias that have increasingly exercised power in the country. Uzay Bulut reports:

The Nineveh Plain is considered the ancient Assyrian heartland and is the only region in Iraq where the largest demographic group is Christian. Assyrians there even have their own security force, the Nineveh Plain Protection Units. Most of the Nineveh plain is currently divided between the Shiite militia and the Sunni Kurdish Peshmerga.

Ashur Sargon Eskrya, the president of the Assyrian Aid Society of Iraq, [states] that Assyrians and other religious minorities such as the Yazidis, caught in the middle of these forces, have faced both physical violence and political marginalization. “The demographic and cultural structure of the Nineveh Plains continues to change changing due to increased Iranian domination, the ongoing presence of IS, and the competing tensions between the central government of Iraq and the Kurdish Regional Government,” he said.

Bulut goes on to cite the analysis of Juliana Taimoorazy, a prominent Iraqi Christian activist:

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s reach through its Shiite militia in the Nineveh Plain has severely affected the Christians of Iraq: this is one of the main reasons why Christians in the post-IS era are not returning to their homes. And let us not forget that [the Iranian] general Qassem Suleimani’s strategy of dismantling IS as an institution was part of a larger Islamic Republic expansionist scheme to create a Shiite crescent [extending] all the way to the Mediterranean. It intended to use the Nineveh Plain as a corridor to the West.

Read more on Gatestone: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16094/iran-iraq-christians