The bell tower of St. Adday Church in Karamles, a town that the "Knights of Columbus" organization helped rebuild. The crooked cross is still standing despite the defeat of ISIS in the region. The artistic and photographic intellectual property rights belong to the (Knights of Columbus) through the lens of photographer "Tamino Petelinsek", and the documentary material was officially published via the Fox News network; it is licensed for media, journalistic, and academic use within coverage related to the reconstruction of the Nineveh Plains towns and monitoring the impacts of exclusionary thought against the indigenous components in the region. Direct digital source: (foxnews.com).

From massacres and forced displacement in the final years of the Ottoman Empire to the crimes committed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, history reveals dangerous periods in which religious fanaticism, political conflicts, and nationalist ambitions turned into systematic persecution targeting our Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian people and other Christians in the Middle East.

Ishtartv.com

Extremist ideology targeting our Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian people and Middle Eastern Christians did not emerge at a single point in history, nor was it the result of one isolated factor. It evolved within different historical contexts in which religious disputes intersected with political and national conflicts and economic interests, eventually contributing to the emergence of modern terrorist organizations that adopted exclusionary ideologies and justified violence against civilians on the basis of their religious identity.

Throughout the centuries, the region experienced periods of coexistence and cultural and economic cooperation among its communities, as well as periods of discrimination, persecution, massacres, and forced displacement. Studying these developments reveals that the danger intensifies when religious differences become grounds for collective accusations, or when the presence of a historic community is portrayed as a threat that must be eliminated.

These practices reached particularly devastating levels during the massacres suffered by our Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian people in the final years of the Ottoman Empire, and later during the Islamic State's advance across large areas of Iraq and Syria, accompanied by killings, displacement, property confiscation, and the destruction of churches, monasteries, and historical sites.

How did extremist ideology targeting our people evolve? Which historical developments contributed to its formation? And what distinguishes persecution in earlier eras from organized terrorism in the modern age?

1. Historical Roots: When Religious Differences Became Political Conflicts

During the first centuries of Christianity, Christians in various parts of the Roman Empire experienced periods of persecution. Following Emperor Constantine's embrace of Christianity and the Edict of Milan in 313, and later the elevation of Christianity to a favored religion of the state under Theodosius I in the late fourth century, Christianity's position within the imperial system changed significantly.

However, this transformation did not eliminate religious conflict. Doctrinal disputes emerged within Christian communities themselves, and some became closely connected to political authority and the relationship between churches and the state.

Following the Council of Chalcedon in 451, Christians who rejected its decisions, including communities associated with the Syriac Miaphysite tradition, experienced periods of restrictions, exile, and violence under certain imperial authorities.

Historian Christine Shepardson, in her book A Memory of Violence: Syriac Christianity and the Radicalization of Religious Difference in Late Antiquity, examines how doctrinal disputes in the fifth and sixth centuries became part of political struggles over acceptable religious belief and the relationship between the church and the state.

This period illustrates an important mechanism in the history of persecution: when religious doctrine becomes tied to political loyalty, religious differences can be transformed into accusations of disloyalty or heresy and used to justify exclusion and punishment.

Nevertheless, these conflicts should not be regarded as the direct beginning of contemporary jihadist terrorism. Their historical significance lies in demonstrating how the politicization of religious identity can become a tool of persecution.

2. After the Islamic Conquests: Between Legal Discrimination and Periods of Coexistence

Following the Islamic conquests in the seventh century, extensive areas of the Levant, Iraq, and Egypt came under successive Muslim-ruled states. These territories were home to ancient Christian communities with established ecclesiastical institutions, languages, and cultural traditions, including our Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian people.

Over subsequent centuries, the circumstances of Christians were not uniform across different states and historical periods. Churches and their institutions continued to operate, and Christians participated in medicine, administration, translation, philosophy, and trade. At other times, however, restrictions, special taxes, persecution, and acts of violence occurred.

One of the legal frameworks governing certain non-Muslim communities was the system known as dhimma. It provided protection and permitted religious practice under conditions that varied historically, while also establishing a legal distinction between Muslims and non-Muslims, including arrangements involving the jizya tax in particular historical contexts.

In some periods, authorities or local groups used these distinctions to impose stricter restrictions or exert pressure on Christians. In other periods, opportunities for social, economic, and cultural participation expanded.

Historian Christian Sahner, in Christian Martyrs under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World, examines the history of religious violence against Christians during the early and medieval Islamic periods and how Christian communities responded to social, legal, and religious pressures.

Historical perspective: The history of Christians in the Middle East cannot be reduced to uninterrupted persecution, nor can the discrimination and violence they experienced be denied. A scholarly interpretation requires distinguishing general legal frameworks from their actual implementation, and the policies of different authorities from violence committed by local groups or crowds.

3. How Does Religious Difference Turn into Exclusionary Ideology?

Religious discrimination alone was not sufficient to produce organized terrorism. Contemporary terrorist movements emerged in modern contexts shaped by state crises, armed conflicts, and ideological mobilization.

Nevertheless, several recurring mechanisms can be identified across different periods of persecution.

Monopolizing religious truth: When a group claims exclusive possession of religious truth, it may move from disagreeing with others to treating them as a threat that must be controlled or eliminated.

Denying legitimacy to others: Targeted communities may be portrayed as outsiders or as people undeserving of equal rights, making discrimination against them easier to justify.

Linking religious identity to political hostility: Local Christians may be accused of representing a foreign power or supporting a political adversary, even when no evidence supports such allegations.

Turning individual responsibility into collective punishment: Rather than holding individuals accountable for specific actions, an entire religious community is blamed for the actions of individuals or political forces. This can expose the community to threats, confiscation of property, or displacement.

Justifying violence in the name of a sacred cause: Some extremist movements selectively interpret religious teachings to give violence a false legitimacy and portray victims as legitimate targets.

These mechanisms are not exclusive to any one religion, nor do they necessarily appear in every religious community or movement. They help explain how exclusionary ideas can become organized persecution when backed by armed force, political protection, or the collapse of state institutions.

4. The Final Years of the Ottoman Empire: Sayfo and the Tragedy of Our Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian People

The final decades of the Ottoman Empire witnessed escalating national and political tensions alongside imperial decline, foreign intervention, wars, and internal crises.

Our Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian people, together with Armenians, Greeks, and other Christian communities, were among those subjected to massacres, forced displacement, and property confiscation, particularly during the First World War and its aftermath.

Sayfo: A Historical Wound in Our People's Memory

In 1915 and the years surrounding it, mass killings and forced displacement affected our Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian people in parts of Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and border areas of present-day Iran.

Known in Assyrian and Syriac historical memory as Sayfo, meaning “sword” in Aramaic, this tragedy is associated with the killing of large numbers of our people, the destruction of villages, churches, and monasteries, and the displacement of extensive communities from their historic homeland.

Historian David Gaunt and his co-authors examine the political, military, and social factors surrounding these massacres in Let Them Not Return: Sayfo – The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire, drawing on historical sources, testimonies, and documentary evidence.

David Gaunt also discusses the complexities of the genocide against the Assyrians in a study published in Genocide Studies International, examining the context of the violence, the parties involved, and the targeting of different Christian communities.

What Does Sayfo Reveal About the Development of Exclusionary Ideology?

Sayfo cannot be explained by religious fanaticism alone. The massacres took place amid wartime policies, suspicions about the loyalty of Christian communities, exclusionary nationalism, disputes over land and political authority, local interests, and violence committed by institutions and armed actors.

Nevertheless, the tragedy reveals a grave danger that emerges when a religious or national community becomes a collective target and its very existence is treated as a political or security problem to be eliminated.

This highlights the importance of distinguishing political disputes from persecution based on identity. When propaganda and incitement combine with confiscation, forced displacement, and killing, a conflict can become a campaign threatening the existence of entire communities.

5. The Twentieth Century: From Nation-States to Armed Movements

Following the First World War, political boundaries in the Middle East changed, and new states emerged. These states faced challenges in building national identities and managing religious and ethnic diversity.

Although our Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian people and other Christians participated in the political, cultural, and economic life of regional countries, they experienced discrimination, violence, and pressures to emigrate in some places. These developments resulted from varying circumstances, including political conflicts, coups, wars, sectarian tensions, and weak state institutions.

In Iraq, our people faced attacks and threats both before and after 2003. As security deteriorated following the invasion, armed groups expanded their activities, and towns and districts with Christian populations became targets of extortion, assassinations, and bombings.

In Syria, the war that began in 2011 led to the breakdown of security and administrative institutions across extensive areas, creating conditions that allowed extremist armed groups to expand their influence.

In Egypt, Coptic Christians experienced attacks against churches and civilians in different contexts. Some were connected to local sectarian tensions, while others involved organized jihadist groups.

These experiences demonstrate that the rise of extremism was not driven by ideas alone. It was also linked to political and security environments that enabled recruitment, the arming of groups, the weakening of the judiciary, and attacks on civilians without effective accountability.

6. Al-Qaeda and ISIS: The Transformation of Exclusionary Ideology into Organized Terrorism

The final decades of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first witnessed the development of radical jihadist movements that adopted exclusionary interpretations of religion and regarded certain religious and political groups as enemies to be subjugated or fought.

With the establishment of al-Qaeda and the development of its regional branches, followed by the emergence of al-Qaeda in Iraq, more organized forms of sectarian violence appeared. In 2013, the organization operating in Iraq and Syria announced its reorganization under the name the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, commonly known as ISIS.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, in its report on religious freedom in Iraq ten years after ISIS's crimes, documents how the organization targeted Yazidis, our Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian people, and other communities from 2014 onward. Its crimes included mass executions, abductions, rape, sexual enslavement, and forced conversion to Islam.

How Did ISIS Construct Its Ideological Narrative Against Christians?

The organization relied on several exclusionary ideas and practices, including:

• Presenting its political project as an absolute religious authority that rejected pluralism and equal citizenship.
• Imposing hardline views on the status of non-Muslims and using threats and extortion to force residents to submit or leave.
• Destroying religious and cultural symbols it considered incompatible with its ideology.
• Using photographs, videos, and digital propaganda to demonstrate power and terrorize civilians and opponents.
• Employing mass violence and displacement to alter the demographic reality of areas under its control.

The organization's rhetoric and practices were not identical in every region or circumstance. Its treatment of Christians varied according to local military and political conditions. Nevertheless, ISIS committed documented abuses against Christians in Iraq and Syria, including property seizures, displacement, destruction, and the deliberate spread of fear.

An academic study entitled Crusader Hirelings or Loyal Subjects? Evolving Jihadist Perspectives on Christian Minorities in the Middle East argues that jihadist movements' positions toward Christians evolved according to political circumstances and conflicts among organizations. Their targeting of Christians was not always the product of a single, unchanging ideological position; it was also influenced by territorial ambitions and local struggles.

7. Mosul and the Nineveh Plains: When Exclusionary Ideology Became a Crime

In June 2014, ISIS seized Mosul and subsequently advanced into parts of the Nineveh Plains. Within weeks, our Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian people faced threats that forced them to flee their cities and villages, creating one of the largest waves of Christian displacement in modern Iraqi history.

Residents experienced the confiscation of homes, shops, and other property. Churches, monasteries, and religious sites were looted, damaged, or desecrated.

In September 2024, the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da'esh (UNITAD) announced that it had submitted a report to Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council concerning crimes committed against Christians in Mosul, the Nineveh Plains, and surrounding areas between 2014 and 2017.

The team found reasonable grounds to believe that acts committed by ISIS against Christians amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity. These included sexual violence, violations of human dignity, destruction of cultural property, looting, the spread of terror among civilians, and forcible transfer.

These findings are particularly important because they are based on investigations, evidence, and survivor testimonies rather than merely on media or political descriptions.

Was the Objective to Erase the Christian Presence from the Region?

ISIS's actions emptied certain areas of their Christian populations, destroyed parts of their heritage, and undermined the ability of displaced people to return and rebuild their lives.

However, establishing genocidal intent under international law requires evidence of a specific intention to destroy a protected group, in whole or in part, as such. It is therefore important to distinguish established war crimes and crimes against humanity from the legal classification of a particular campaign or incident as genocide.

International bodies have documented ISIS's crimes against Christians, while the United Nations has applied the genocide designation in its investigations into the organization's crimes against the Yazidis. These legal classifications should not be conflated, nor should one group's suffering be minimized because of the different legal classification applied to another.

8. Attacks on Christians in Syria, Egypt, and Other Countries

Jihadist attacks were not confined to Iraq. Christians in Syria, Egypt, and other countries experienced assaults linked to different local circumstances and organizations.

Syria

During the Syrian war, extremist armed groups controlled areas inhabited by our Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian people and other Christian communities. Residents faced threats, displacement, and abduction, while clergy were kidnapped and religious sites were destroyed.

Conditions differed from one area to another. Some attacks were associated with the control of jihadist groups, while others resulted from the collapse of security, fighting among armed factions, or local social and political pressures.

Egypt

Coptic Christians experienced attacks against churches and civilians, including the bombing of the Saints Church in Alexandria on January 1, 2011, and the attacks on St. George's Church in Tanta and the Saint Mark's Cathedral in Alexandria in April 2017.

ISIS also claimed responsibility for attacks targeting Copts as part of an effort to provoke sectarian conflict and portray the state as incapable of protecting its citizens.

Lebanon, Jordan, and Other Countries

The threats facing Christians elsewhere in the region vary. Some countries have experienced direct terrorist attacks, while challenges in others include political tensions, emigration, inadequate legal protection, or the consequences of wars in neighboring countries.

It is therefore inaccurate to treat all these cases as part of one identical process or attribute them all to a single organization. Each incident requires examination of the responsible party, motive, evidence, and local context.

9. What Factors Allow Terrorist Ideology to Expand?

An extremist narrative alone cannot explain the transformation of radical ideas into widespread violence. Contemporary experiences point to several factors that can facilitate the expansion of terrorist groups.

The collapse of state institutions: Weak policing, ineffective courts, and inadequate control of weapons allow armed groups to impose their authority.

Sectarian conflict: When political disagreements are presented as existential struggles between religious communities, civilians become more vulnerable to collective targeting.

Propaganda and incitement: Rumors, hate speech, and conspiracy theories can contribute to portraying entire communities as enemies.

Impunity: A lack of accountability encourages the repetition of crimes, particularly when attacks against places of worship and private property are not independently investigated.

Economic interests: Extremist groups may use extortion, property confiscation, and illicit trafficking in antiquities to finance their activities and consolidate control.

Exploitation of social and political grievances: Organizations may exploit anger and marginalization to recruit individuals and then direct them toward violence against other communities.

The presence of these factors does not mean that every society experiencing them will inevitably face terrorism, nor does poverty or marginalization automatically lead to extremism. Rather, these conditions interact with leadership decisions, recruitment networks, ideologies, and access to armed force.

10. Extremist Ideology in the Digital Age

Modern technology has added new dimensions to terrorist propaganda. In the past, incitement spread through publications, sermons, and limited organizational networks. Today, terrorist organizations can exploit digital platforms to spread hate speech, recruit supporters, broadcast scenes of violence, and mislead the public.

It has also become easier to recycle old images of attacks or circulate unverified reports to inflame tensions between religious communities.

These developments mean that combating terrorism is no longer solely a security issue. It also requires protecting the media environment from incitement, strengthening information verification, documenting abuses, and supporting public discourse that protects everyone's right to live with difference.

At the same time, a distinction must be made between conservative religious expression or legitimate political criticism and direct incitement to violence or calls to deprive a community of its fundamental rights. Equal citizenship, freedom of expression, and protection of places of worship are essential to countering extremism without undermining fundamental rights.

11. Protecting the Historic Presence of Our Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian People

The experience of our people demonstrates that addressing the consequences of terrorism does not end when armed organizations lose territorial control.

The return of displaced people requires security, housing, employment opportunities, and the restoration of property. It also requires protecting churches, monasteries, manuscripts, language, and cultural heritage. Affected communities need efforts to establish the fate of missing persons, support survivors, and hold those responsible for crimes accountable through fair judicial procedures.

In Iraq, protecting the historic presence of our Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian people remains closely linked to equal citizenship, the implementation of constitutional rights, the prevention of discrimination, and the protection of the Nineveh Plains and Mosul from renewed armed-group activity or pressures that force residents to emigrate.

At the regional level, governments, religious institutions, civil society organizations, and international bodies must cooperate to prevent hate incitement, strengthen historical and religious education that rejects the dehumanization of others, and pursue networks that finance terrorism or traffic in antiquities and stolen property.

Conclusion: From the Politicization of Difference to the Targeting of an Entire Community

Extremist ideology targeting our Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian people and Middle Eastern Christians did not evolve along a straight line or arise from a single cause. Throughout history, religious disputes intersected with political and national conflicts. In the modern era, armed organizations emerged that adopted exclusionary ideologies and used accusations of apostasy, propaganda, and organized violence to impose their projects.

The massacres suffered by our people in the final years of the Ottoman Empire, followed by the crimes committed by ISIS against them in Iraq and Syria, demonstrate how collective suspicion, discrimination, and incitement can escalate into displacement and the destruction of communities.

Nevertheless, understanding history requires avoiding the equation of all eras, governments, and movements, and rejecting the attribution of the actions of extremist groups or particular authorities to an entire religion or people.

Combating terrorism begins with rejecting the transformation of religious identity into an accusation. It requires building institutions that protect rights, prevent impunity, and guarantee our Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian people and all communities of the Middle East the right to live, worship, enjoy citizenship, and remain in their ancestral homeland.

The problem is not the existence of religious difference, but an ideology that turns that difference into a justification for denying human beings their right to existence, security, and dignity.

Sources and References

1. United Nations – Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da'esh (UNITAD): Findings on international crimes committed by ISIS against Christians in Iraq, particularly in Mosul and the Nineveh Plains between 2014 and 2017.
Read the United Nations report

2. United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF): Religious Freedom Challenges in Iraq: 10 Years After ISIS's Genocide. The report addresses crimes against religious communities, including our Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian people.
Read the full report – PDF

3. Peer-reviewed academic study: Crusader Hirelings or Loyal Subjects? Evolving Jihadist Perspectives on Christian Minorities in the Middle East. Examines the evolution of jihadist movements' positions toward Christians in the Middle East.
Read the study – Taylor & Francis Online

4. David Gaunt and colleagues: Let Them Not Return: Sayfo – The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire. A historical reference on the Sayfo massacres targeting our people during the final years of the Ottoman Empire.
Access the book through JSTOR

5. Academic study: The Complexity of the Assyrian Genocide. Examines the complex historical and political circumstances surrounding the genocide against the Assyrians in the final years of the Ottoman Empire.
Read the study

6. Christine Shepardson: A Memory of Violence: Syriac Christianity and the Radicalization of Religious Difference in Late Antiquity. Examines religious difference, political authority, and violence in late antiquity.
Access the book through JSTOR

7. Christian Sahner: Christian Martyrs under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World. Studies religious violence against Christians during the early and medieval Islamic periods.
Access the book through Oxford Academic

Editorial note: These references support the historical and analytical themes discussed in the report. They do not imply that every period of persecution had a single cause. Religious, political, national, and military factors interacted differently across historical periods.