Under the British mandate , Assyrians were organized into militia groups called " the Assyrian Levies " and were used to put down revolts and support the British military presence in Iraq . The Assyrians were abandoned by the British once Iraq achieved independence in 1933 . In the summer of that year an armed group of 800 Assyrians crossed from Iraq into Syria , where there were many other Assyrians , to " assert what they perceived as their legitimate national rights " , according to Jonathan Eric Lewis , a political analyst . French colonial authorities in Syria forced them back into Iraq where the Iraqi military attacked them . On August 7 , " the Iraqi army and Kurdish irregulars , with genuine popular support , committed a massacre at Simele . " According to Assyrian sources , the dead numbered 3,000 ( other estimates put the number in the " hundreds " . " No event has shaped Iraqi Assyrian collective identity more " , Lewis wrote
massacre at Simele
Simele massacre
Human rights in pre-Saddam Iraq