In August 1933 Sidqi ordered the Iraqi Army to march to the north to crush so-called "militant Assyrian separatists", in the town of Simele, near Mosul, which led to 3,000 Assyrian civilians being killed throughout the region in the Simele massacre.
With Iraqi independence, the new Assyrian spiritual-temporal leader, Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII, demanded the Assyrians be given autonomy within Iraq as had been promised by the British and Russians during World War I, seeking support from Britain.