Christian militias in Iraq and Syria

The Christian militias in Iraq and Syria are predominantly Assyrian militias that have been formed since the start of the Syrian Civil War and the War in Iraq (2013-17). Although they are primarily composed of Assyrian fighters, they also include Arab and Armenian irregulars from Christian communities in Syria and Iraq. Assyrians in Iraq have formed militias in the north to protect Assyrian communities, towns and villages in the Assyrian homeland and Nineveh Plains. Some foreign Christian fighters from the Western world have also joined these militias.

Following the spillover of the Syrian Civil War, and the rise of the Islamist militant groups, many Christian civilians fled, in particular in fear of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who have violently persecuted Christians in the areas that have come under their control. Some of those that have stayed formed militias, largely to protect their own populations from ISIL and other hardline Syrian rebel Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda's Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, and Jund al-Aqsa. While initially forming to protect their own territory, some of the larger militias have gone on the offensive.

Before the war, as much as 10% of the population in Syria was Assyrian, Armenian, or Arab Christian, who made up one of the largest Christian minorities in the Middle East. In the early days of the civil war, some Christian communities were given arms by both the Syrian government and Kurdish groups, to defend themselves against sectarian Sunni Islamist Syrian rebels. The Syriac Military Council, a Syriac-Assyrian Christian militia allied with the Kurdish-majority People's Protection Units (YPG), is the largest Christian militia in the Syrian civil war. By comparison with some of the other armed groups in Syria, Christian militias are small, and dependent on the Syrian government or the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. Defense units set up under the auspices of the Ba'athist Syrian government were called Popular Committees, which were then integrated into the National Defense Forces. After the fall of the Assad regime, these units disbanded.