The Simele massacre was the first massacre commited by the Iraqi government as Assyrian Christians of Sumail (Simele) were systematically being targeted. It led to the deaths of an estimated 3,000 Assyrians.^[1] The word massacre has a number of meanings, but most commonly refers to individual events of deliberate and direct mass killing, especially of noncombatant civilians or other innocents, that would often qualify as war crimes or atrocities. ... Politics of Iraq includes the social relations involving authority or power in Iraq. ... It has been suggested that Assyrian people be merged into this article or section. ... Assyrian church named Church Of Martyrs Townhall Building Sumail is a city located in the providence of Dohuk, Iraq. ...

The Assyrians had just came off one of their worse times in their history, as 2/3 of their population was massacred during World War I by Ottoman Turks and Kurds in what is described today as the Assyrian genocide. Throughout the crisis, beginning in late Spring 1933, public feeling against the Assyrians was ‘fever heat’, as American representative Paul Knabenshue was quoted.^[2] With Iraqi independence, the new Assyrian spiritual-temporal leader, Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII, decided to claim Assyrian autonomy within Iraq, with seeking support from Britain. He pressed his case before the League of Nations in 1932. His followers planned to resign from the Assyrian levies (a levie under the command of the British, that served British interest), and to re-group as a militia and concentrate in the north, creating a de facto Assyrian enclave. In June 1933, the Patriach was invited to Baghdad for negotiations with Hikmat Sulayman’s government and was detained there after refusing to relinquish temporal authority. Combatants Allied Powers: France Italy Russia Serbia United Kingdom United States Central Powers: Austria-Hungary Bulgaria Germany Ottoman Empire Commanders Ferdinand Foch Georges Clemenceau Victor Emmanuel III Luigi Cadorna Nicholas II Aleksei Brusilov Herbert Henry Asquith Douglas Haig John Jellicoe Woodrow Wilson John Pershing Wilhelm II Paul von Hindenburg Reinhard... The Ottoman Turks were the ethnic subdivision of the Turkish people who dominated the ruling class of the Ottoman Empire. ... Kurds are one of the Iranian peoples and speak Kurdish, a north-Western Iranian language related to Persian. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII, sometimes known as Mar Shimun XXI Ishaya, Catholicos Patriarch of the Church of the East from 1920 until his assassination on November 6, 1975. ... The Assyrian homeland or Assyria refers a name of a geographic and cultural region in the Middle East, inhabited traditionally by the Assyrian people. ... The League of Nations was an international organization founded after the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. ... Baghdad ( translit: ) is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate. ... Hikmat Sulayman (1889–19??) was prime minister of Iraq from October 30, 1936 to August 12, 1937. ...

In early August of 1933, more than 1,000 Assyrians who had been refused asylum in Syria crossed the border to return to their villages in Northern Iraq. The French, who at the time were controlling Syria, had notified the Iraqis that the Assyrians were not armed; but while the Iraqi soldiers were disarming those whose arms had been returned, shots were fired resulting in 30 Iraqi and Assyrian casualties. Anti-Assyrian and Anti-British xenophobia, apparent throughout the crisis, accelerated. Reports circulated of Assyrian mutilation of Iraqi soldiers (later proven to be false.) In Baghdad, the government panicked, fearing disaster as the Assyrians presented a formidable fighting force that could provoke a general uprising in the north. The government unleashed Kurdish irregulars who killed some 120 inhabitants of two Assyrian villages in the week of August 2 to August 9. Then on August 11, a march to what was then one of largest Assyrian town, Sumail, led by Kurdish general Bakr Sidqi (who had clashed with Assyrians before), systematically massacred the entire population. The campaign lasted until August 16, resulting in the massacre of approximately 3,000 civilians. Look up xenophobia in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Bakr Sidqi, an Iraqi nationalist and general, was born in 1890 in Kirkuk and assassinated on Aug. ...

Aftermath

From the nationalists’ point of view, the Assyrian levies were British proxies, to be used by their ‘masters’ to destroy the new Iraqi state whose independence the British had consistently opposed. The Assyrians were allowed their auxiliary troops to retain their arms and granted them special duty and privileges: guarding military air installantions and received higher pay than the Iraqi Arab recruits. Under British protection, the Assyrians did not become Iraqi citizens after independence. The British were hoping for the Assyrians to destroy Iraq’s internal cohesion by becoming independent and by inciting others to follow their example.

Immediately after the massacre and the shutting down of the Assyrian uprising, the Iraqi government demanded for a conscription bill. Non-Assyrian Iraqi Tribesmen offered to serve in the Iraqi army, to counter the Assyrians. In late August, the government of Mosul demanded that the central government ‘ruthlessly’ stamp out the rebellion, and that it eliminate all foreign influence in Iraqi affairs, and that the government take immediate steps to enact a law for compulsory military service. The next week, 49 Kurdish tribal chieftains joined in a pro-conscription telegram to the government, expressing thanks for punishing the ‘Assyrian insurgents’, stating that a "nation can be proud of itself only through its power, and since evidence of this power is the army," they requested compulsory military service. Rashid Ali presented the bill to the parliament. His government fell before it was legislated and Jamil Midfai’s government passed conscription in January 1934. August is the eighth month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

References

1. ^ http://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/iq350a.pdf
2. ^ Iraq Between the Two World Wars: The Militarist Origins of Tyranny, 2004