Today, there are fewer than 250-thousand Christians living in Iraq,
down from more than a million at the start of the US-led war in 2003.
The latest threat to them has come from ISIS. The militants invaded the Nineveh Plains two years ago, occupied Mosul, and many of the surrounding towns.
They destroyed ancient, pre-Islamic art, razed Assyrian archaeological sites to the ground, and issued Christians a chilling ultimatum: Convert to Islam, pay taxes to us or die. Thousands of Iraqi Christians fled Mosul, including Mayada Abd Ghany, her husband, and their four children. ISIS gave them only three days notice to leave their home, enough time to pack some clothes and family pictures.
The latest threat to them has come from ISIS. The militants invaded the Nineveh Plains two years ago, occupied Mosul, and many of the surrounding towns.
They destroyed ancient, pre-Islamic art, razed Assyrian archaeological sites to the ground, and issued Christians a chilling ultimatum: Convert to Islam, pay taxes to us or die. Thousands of Iraqi Christians fled Mosul, including Mayada Abd Ghany, her husband, and their four children. ISIS gave them only three days notice to leave their home, enough time to pack some clothes and family pictures.
The latest threat.
That's important.
It's a reality Moni Basu (CNN) ignores repeatedly in a much, much longer piece.
Christians have been under attack since the 2003 US-led invasion.
Saddam Hussein had a secular government in place.
The US installed cowards, fundamentalists who had fled Iraq decades ago.
They wanted to turn progress back and, in fact, have succeeded.
They went after Christians and other religious minorities.
Over 500,000 (possibly 750,000) had fled Iraq before the rise of the Islamic State.
They did that because the government didn't protect them.
And, you can argue, that Mosul was not a priority to the Iraqi government due to its religious minorities.
After all, the city was seized by the Islamic State in June of 2014.
What kind of government allows a city to be seized for over two years before even trying to liberate it?
Maybe a government that's not all that interested in Christian minorities?
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