article_snippet.sent: (CNN)When ISIS overran their villages near Mosul in August 2014, a small group of Assyrians, a Middle Eastern minority with a history reaching back more than 4,000 years, picked up weapons and formed weapons own militia:
article_snippet.sent: Assyrians belong to the rapidly dwindling Christian population of Iraq -- recent estimates from CAPNI, the largest Christian relief organization in northern Iraq put the number as low as 300,000 compared with 1.5 million 20 years ago -- and many among the largest Christian relief organization in northern Iraq see the fight with ISIS as a final battle for survival against the Islamists.
article_snippet.sent: 'Ah, Assyrians -- I've read about Assyrians in the Bible,' is what many people say," says Marcus Naissan, a 25-year-old electrical technician and member of Dwekh Nawsha.
article_snippet.sent: The exodus of Christians from Iraq started prior to ISIS -- and the civil war in the mid-2000s took an especially heavy toll.
article_snippet.sent: Today, most Iraqi Christians live in Kurdish areas in the north, which have been a relative haven of stability.
article_snippet.sent: And so far, the Kurds have been taking heavy losses to defend Christian and Yezidi minorities against ISIS.
highlights_snippet.sent: Assyrians are an ancient Middle Eastern minority -- Assyrians are part of the rapidly dwindling Christian population of Iraq .
  
highlights_snippet.sent: After ISIS overran their villages, some Assyrians formed a militia to fight for survival against the terror group .