 With Iraqi independence , the new Assyrian spiritual @-@ temporal leader , Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII the Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East , demanded the Assyrians be given autonomy within Iraq , seeking support from the United Kingdom and pressing his case before the League of Nations in 1932 . His followers planned to resign from the Assyrian Levies ( a military force under the command of the British that served British interests ) and to re @-@ group as a militia and concentrate in the north , creating a de facto Assyrian enclave . 
