Iraq’s Christian Minority Feels Militant Threat – Maria Abi-Habib (Wall Street Journal)
(dailyalert.org, Jun. 27, 2014)

    The ranks of Iraq’s Christian community have shrunk by half in the past decade, as they flee sectarian violence.

    At the Syriac Catholic Our Lady of Salvation Church in downtown Baghdad, a 35-year-old armed guard said that the country’s largest religious communities – Sunni Muslims and Shiites – have often been too busy fighting each other to hunt Christians, but as Sunni militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, sweep through the country, it is different this time.

    “Now all these terrorists are here from across the Middle East, and they want to cleanse the Christians,” he said.

    “The youth have left. There’s no one left to defend the church, and if I had the chance, I’d leave, too.”

    See also Iraqi Christians Live in Fear of ISIS – Katrin Kuntz (Der Spiegel-Germany)

    See also Christians in Iraq Weigh Autonomous Christian Region near Kurdistan– Michael Carl (WND)

    As ISIS continues its drive to Baghdad, AssyrianChristians.com writer Amir George declares that something “we never believed could be possible is coming out of this.”

    “A Christian area on the Nineveh plain is forming, and it looks like it may be a safe, self-governing area where Christians can live freely.”

    He said the autonomous Christian region, near Kurdistan, is now being protected by a 5,000-member security force of Christians and Kurds, and will likely be self-sustaining.