 A cold blooded and methodical massacre of all the men in the village then followed , a massacre which for the black treachery in which it was conceived and the callousness with which it was carried out , was as foul a crime as any in the blood stained annals of the Middle East . The Assyrians had no fight left in them , partly because of the state of mind to which the events of the past week had reduced them , largely because they were disarmed . Had they been armed it seems certain that Ismail Abawi Tohalla and his bravos would have hesitated to take them on in fair fight . Having disarmed them , they proceeded with the massacre according to plan . This took some time . Not that there was any hurry , for the troops had the whole day ahead of them . Their opponents were helpless and there was no chance of any interference from any quarter whatsoever . Machine gunners set up their guns outside the windows of the houses in which the Assyrians had taken refuge , and having trained them on the terror stricken wretches in the crowded rooms , fired among them until not a man was left standing in the shambles . In some other instance the blood lust of the troops took a slightly more active form , and men were dragged out and shot or bludgeoned to death and their bodies thrown on a pile of dead . 
