The Assyrian War" was a temporarily successful war of independence waged by the Assyrian Patriarch and the chiefs (Assyrian:]], the Soviet Union, the Persian Empire, the Kingdom of Iraq, the French Mandate of Syria, and the British Mandate of Mesopotamia.

Following the fall of the Assyrian Empire to the Babylonian Empire, the Median Empire, and eventually the Persian Empire, most of Assyria came under Persian rule. Over the ensuing centuries, Assyrians struggled to maintain their ethnic identity amid massacres, but eventually secured the right to build Christian churches throughout the Persian Empire of the Sassanians.

Battle of Hakkari

Assyrians in what is now Turkey primarily lived in the provinces of Hakkari, Şırnak, and Mardin. These areas also had a sizable Kurdish population. Starting in the nineteenth century, the Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians of eastern Anatolia, including the Hakkari mountains in Van province, were the subject of forced relocations and executions, a possible cause being religious persecution of the Christian community of Anatolia.

At the outset of World War I, approximately one half of the Assyrian population lived in what is today Southern Turkey. The Young Turks, an ultranationalist group, took control of the Ottoman Empire only five years before the beginning of World War I. The Ottomans planned to join the side of the Central Powers and join the German Reich in dividing up the British and French empires in Asia. In 1914, knowing that it was heading into the war, the Ottoman government passed a law that required the conscription of all young males into the Ottoman army to support the war effort. The Ottoman Empire entered World War I in October 1914 by bombarding Russian ports on the Black Sea.

In late 1914 and 1915, the Ottoman Empire under the Young Turk regime declared a holy war on the Christians of the Empire along with the British and Russian Empires, who were all grouped together as the enemies of Islam. Ottoman Turks and Kurds proceeded to massacre tens of thousands of Assyrians in the Hakkari mountains of ancient Assyria (upper Mesopotamia, present-day southeastern Turkey) prior to any alliance between the Assyrians and the British or Russians. The Patriarch of the Assyrians, Mar Shimun XIX Benjamin, declared war on the Ottomans on behalf of the Assyrian nation. The Assyrian army under General David, the patriarch's brother, led the Assyrians out of an encircling Ottoman army maneuver across the Persian border onto the plains of Urmia.

In April 1915 the Assyrian nation, led by its tribal chiefs of Baz, Jilu, Tyari, Tkhuma, and Diz "took arms against the Turks at the request of the Russians." Over the summer of 1915 they held off the Ottoman army and 10,000 Kurdish militia and tribal forces fighting with the Ottomans. The Ottomans brought in artillery and ammunition that outmatched the Assyrians, however. The Russian Army Corps had promised reinforcements, which came too late, leading most of the population of the tribes and districts of Baz, Jilu, Tyari, Tkhuma, Tergawar, Mergawar, Bohtan, Barwar, Amadia and Seert to be massacred. Some survivors joined the remnant of the Assyrian Persias from Salamas and Urmia to form an Assyro-Chaldean army, and had a real prospect of fighting with the Russians to evict the Ottoman forces from Russia, Persia, and historic Assyria until the Russian Revolution of 1917 dissolved the Russian army. Lacking allies except the British some miles away in Mesopotamia, the Assyrians planned to follow the Russian lines to the Caucasus, but the Allies (including British, French, and Russian diplomats) urged Mar Shimoun and the Assyrian army to defend the Allied-Ottoman front lines, and enjoy autonomy and independence in the post-war period as their reward.

An Assyrian nation under British and Russian protection was promised the Assyrians first by Russian officers, and later confirmed by Captain Gracey of the British Intelligence Service. Based on these representations, the Assyrians of Hakkari, under their Mar Shimun XXIX Benjamin and the Assyrian tribal chiefs "decided to side with the Allies, first with Christian Russia, and next with the British, in the hope that they might secure after the victory, a self-government for the Assyrians." The French also joined the alliance with the Assyrians, offering them 20,000 rifles, and the Assyrian army grew to 20,000 men co-led by Agha Petrus Elie of Baz, and Malik Khochaba of Tiyari.

In October 1914, 71 Assyrian men of Gawar were arrested and taken to the local government centre in Bashkale and killed. Also in April, Kurdish troops surrounded the village of Tel Mozilt and imprisoned 475 men (among them, Reverend Gabrial, the famous red-bearded priest). The following morning, the prisoners were taken out in rows of four and shot. Arguments rose between the Kurds and the Ottoman officials on what to do with the women and orphans left behind. At about this time, in Seert the Turks and Kurds "assembled all the children of from six to fifteen years and carried them off to the headquarters of the police. There they led the poor little things to the top of a mountain known as Ras-el Hadjar and cut their throats one by one, throwing their bodies into an abyss. In April 1915, Ottoman Troops easily invaded Gawar, a region of Hakkari, and massacred the entire population.

In late 1915, Cevdet Bey, Military Governor of Van Province, upon entering Siirt (or Seert) with 8,000 soldiers whom he himself called "The Butchers' Battalion" ( ), ordered the massacre of almost 20,000 Assyrian civilians in at least 30 villages. Cevdet is reported to have held a meeting in February 1915 at which he said, "We have cleansed the Armenians and Syriac [Christian]s from Azerbaijan, and we will do the same in Van". The following is a list documenting the villages that were attacked by Cevdet's soldiers and the estimated number of Assyrian deaths:

Sairt - 2,000	Sadagh - 2,000	Mar-Gourya - 1,000	Guedianes - 500	Hadide - 1,000	Harevena - 200
Redwan - 500	Dehok - 500	Ketmes - 1,000	Der-Chemch - 200	Piros - 1,000	Der-Mar-Yacoub- 500
Tentas - 500	Tellimchar - 1,500	Ketmes - 1,000	Telnevor - 500	Benkof - 200	Bekend - 500
Altaktanie - 500	Goredj - 500	Galwaye - 500	Der-Mazen - 300	Der-Rabban - 300	Charnakh - 200
Artoun - 1,000	Ain-Dare - 200	Berke - 500	Archkanes - 500

The village of Sairt/Seert, was populated by Assyrians and Armenians. Seert was the seat of a Chaldean Archbishop, the orientalist Addai Scher who was murdered by the Kurds.

On March 3, 1918, the Ottoman army led by Kurdish soldiers, assassinated one of the most important Assyrian leaders at the time, Mar Shimun XIX Benyamin. This resulted in Malik Khoshaba counterattacking the Ottomans, so that some 30 soldiers were killed or wounded.

The Assyro-Chaldean National Council stated in a December 4, 1922, memorandum that the total death toll was unknown, but it estimated that about 275,000 "Assyro-Chaldeans" died between 1914 and 1918. The Times of London was perhaps the first widely respected publication to document the fact that 250,000 Assyrians and Chaldeans eventually died in the Ottoman genocide of Christians, a figure which many journalists and scholars have subsequently accepted....As the Earl of Listowel, speaking in the House of Lords on 28 November 1933, stated, ‘‘the Assyrians fought on our side during the war,’’ and made ‘‘enormous sacrifices,’’ having ‘‘lost altogether by the end of the War about two-thirds of their total number.’'.... About half of the Assyrian nation died of murder, disease, or exposure as refugees during the war, according to the head of the Anglican Church, which had a mission to the Assyrians.

Scholars have placed the number of Assyrian victims at 250,000 to 500,000.

Contemporary sources usually speak of the events in terms of a massacre of Christians by the Ottoman Empire, listing the Greek Orthodox, Syriac Christian and Armenian Christian victims together. "In 1918, according to the Los Angeles Times, Ambassador Morgenthau confirmed that the Ottoman Empire had 'massacred fully 2,000,000 men, women, and children -- Greeks, Assyrians, Armenians; fully 1,500,000 Armenians.'" With 250,000 Greeks among the dead, that makes Ambassador Morgenthau's estimate of Assyrian deaths about 250,000.

Battle of Persia

The Ottoman forces threatened Urmia and northwestern Persia after the Russian Revolution in October 1917. The Assyrians, led by Assyrian general Agha Petros held them off until June 1918, at which point they were again encircled and had no choice but to break through to their British allies across the border in Mesopotamia. Up to 100,000 Assyrians left Persia in 1918, but around half died of Turkish and Kurdish massacres and related outbreaks of starvation and disease. About 80 percent of Assyrian clergy and spiritual leaders had perished, threatening the nation's ability to survive as a unit.

Hannibal Travis, Assistant Professor of Law at Florida International University, wrote in the peer-reviewed journal Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal that the Assyrian city of Urmia was "completely wiped out, the inhabitants massacred," with 200 surrounding villages ravaged, 200,000 of Assyrian dead, and hundreds of thousands more Assyrians starving to death in exile from their agricultural lands. The Associated Press reported that in the vicinity of Urmia, ‘‘Turkish regular troops and Kurds are persecuting and massacring Assyrian Christians.’’ The victims included 800 massacred near Urmia, and 2,000 dead from disease. Two hundred Assyrians were burned to death inside a church, and the Russians had discovered more than 700 bodies of massacre victims in the village of Hafdewan outside Urmia, ‘‘mostly naked and mutilated,’’ some with gunshot wounds, others decapitated, and still others carved to pieces. Other leading British and American newspapers corroborated these accounts of the Assyrian genocide. The New York Times reported on 11 October that 12,000 Persian Christians had died of massacre, hunger, or disease; thousands of girls as young as seven had been raped or forcibly converted to Islam; Christian villages had been destroyed, and three-fourths of these Christian villages were burned to the ground.

Battle of Iraq

In Iraq, the Assyrians joined the Kurds and Arabs in celebrating the Ottoman defeat, and joining the levies of the British Mandate of Mesopotamia.Up to 1921 the Levies had consisted of Arabs, Kurds, Turkomans. Now that Iraq Army was to be formed, the Arabs would be required to join it rather than to go to Levies. It was decided to enlist Assyrians in the Levies. In July of 1922 Orders were issued in which no more Arabs were to be enlisted as they were required to join the new Iraqi Army, those serving could not re-engage, A 1922 Treaty between Great Britain and Iraq allowed for the continued existence of the Levies as "local forces of the Imperial garrison" and that its members were "members of the British Forces who are inhabitants of Iraq". By 1923 the ethnic composition of the Iraq Levies was half Assyrian and half Kurd, plus an attached battalion of Marsh Arabs and a few Turkomans. The original Levies were not Assyrians until 1928 when the levies became entirely Assyrian.

As a high British official in Mesopotamia wrote in 1933: "As they became more disciplined they rendered excellent service; during the Arab rebellion of 1920 they displayed, under conditions of the greatest trial, steadfast loyalty to their British officers."

In 1931 Assyrian levies and Iraqi army units were patrolling Barzan district. Government troops implied government control, which Shaykh Ahmad still wanted to avoid.

On October 23, 1931, the Catholicos of the Church of the East, Mar Eshai Shimun, and the maliks of the Jilu, Baz, Tkhuma, and Upper Tiyari tribes wrote to the Chairman of the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations to request resettlement out of Iraq, to French Syria or any other country in the League that would accept them as refugees. The Patriarch wrote that: "The Assyrian Nation which is temporarily living in Iraq, ... have unanimously held a Conference with me in Mosul on the 20th October 1931. At this Conference were present the temporal and spiritual leaders of the Assyrian Nation in its entirely as it will be observed from the document quoted above bearing the leaders' signatures." He goes on to say that at the conference, "it was unanimously decided by all those present that it is quite impossible for us to live in Iraq." He added that "together with the undermentioned signatories being the responsible leaders of the Assyrian Nation" wanted to inform the League that the Assyrians, "which in past centuries numbered millions but reduced to a very small number due to repeated persecutions and massacres that faced us, ... have been able to preserve our Language and Faith up to the present time." He conclused that "WE ARE POSITIVELY SURE THAT IF WE REMAIN IN IRAQ, we shall be exterminated in the course of few years."

On June 1, 1932 the Assyrian levies presented a signed memorial to their Commanding Officer stating that "all the men had decided to cease serving as from 1st July." The reason was Britain had "failed adequately to ensure the future of the Assyrian nation after the termination of their mandate over Iraq."

"They had dug trenches and were determined on destroying the Assyrians and taking their properties and possessions.

Assyrians painfully remembered the massacre of 1933 in Simele and the surrounding villages and pledged "Never Again!".

They remembered the raping and pillaging of defenseless Assyrian villagers."

In early 1933, the American representative in Iraq, Paul Knabenshue, described public animosity towards the Assyrians as reaching a 'fever' pitch. With Iraq's independence, the new Assyrian spiritual-temporal leader, Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII, demanded that the Assyrians be given autonomy within Iraq, seeking support from Britain. He pressed his case before the League of Nations in 1932. His followers planned to resign from the Assyrian levies (a levie under the command of the British, that served British interest), and to re-group as a militia and concentrate in the north, creating a de facto Assyrian enclave. In June 1933, the Patriarch was invited to Baghdad for negotiations with Hikmat Sulayman’s government and was detained there after refusing to relinquish temporal authority. Mar Shimun would eventually be exiled to Cyprus, thus forcing the head of the Assyrian Church of the East to be located in Chicago to this day.

In early August 1933, the chiefs of the Tkhuma Tribe and the Tiyari led more than 1,000 Assyrians who had been refused asylum in Syria in crossing the border to return to their villages in Northern Iraq, where their wives and children had remained. The French, who at the time were controlling Syria, had notified the Iraqis that the Assyrians were not armed; but while the Iraqi soldiers were disarming those whose arms had been returned, shots were fired resulting in 30 Iraqi and Assyrian casualties. Anti-Assyrian and Anti-British xenophobia, apparent throughout the crisis, accelerated. Reports circulated of Assyrian mutilation of Iraqi soldiers (later proven to be false). In Baghdad, the government panicked, fearing disaster as the Assyrians presented a formidable fighting force that could provoke a general uprising in the north. The government unleashed Kurdish irregulars who killed some 120 inhabitants of two Assyrian villages in the week of August 2 to August 9 (with most of the massacre occurring on August 7). Then on August 11, Kurdish general Bakr Sidqi (who had clashed with Assyrians before) led a march to what was then one of the most heavily inhabited Assyrian area in Iraq, the Simele district.

The Assyrian population of the district of Simele was indiscriminately massacred; men women, and children. In one room alone, eighty one Assyrians of Baz tribe were massacred. Religious leaders were prime targets; eight Assyrian priests were killed during the massacre, including one beheaded and another burned alive. Girls were raped and women violated and made to march naked before the Muslim army commanders. Holy books were used as fuel for burning girls. Children were run over by military cars. Pregnant women were bayoneted. Children were flung in the air and pierced with bayonets.

Back in the city of Nohadra, 600 Assyrians were killed by Sidqi's men.

In the end, around 65 Assyrian villages were targeted in the Mosul and Dohuk districts.

The Semele or Simele Massacre is the term used to describe the systematic targeting of Assyrians of Northern Iraq in August 1933. The term is used to describe not only the massacre of Simele, but also the killing spree that continued among 63 Assyrian villages in the Dohuk and Mosul districts that led to the deaths of an estimated 3,000 innocent Assyrians.

The Simele Massacre of the Assyrian people is often regarded as a phase of the Assyrian genocide beginning in August 1914 in the early days of what became World War I. By 1933, an estimated two-thirds of their population was massacred by Ottoman Turks and Kurds.

List of targeted villages
Ala Keena	Bameri	Betershy	Dairke	Gond Naze	Kaserezden	Korekavana	Majel Makhte	Sirchuri
Aloka	Barcawra	Betafrey	Dair Kishnik	Harkonda	Kerry	Kowashey	Rabibyia	Shekhidra
Badalliya	Baroshkey	Bidari	Derjendy	Idleb	Kitba	Lazga	Rekawa	Spendarook
Baderden	Basorik	Biswaya	Fishkhabour	Kaberto	Khalata	Mansouriya	Sar Shorey	Tal Zet
Bagerey	Bastikey	Carbeli	Garvaly	Karpel	Kharab Koli	Mawani	Sezary	Tel Khish
Bakhitmey	Benaringee	Chem Jehaney	Gereban	Karshen	Kharsheniya	Qasr Yazdin	Sidzari	Zeniyat

Today, most of these villages are inhabited by Kurds. The main campaign lasted until August 16, but violent raids on Assyrians were being reported up to the end of the month. After the campaign, Badr Sidqi was invited to Baghdad for a victory rally. The campaign resulted in one third of the Assyrian population of Iraq fleeing to Syria.





Immediately after the massacre and the shutting down of the Assyrian uprising, the Iraqi government demanded a conscription bill. Non-Assyrian Iraqi tribesmen offered to serve in the Iraqi army, to counter the Assyrians. In late August, the government of Mosul demanded that the central government ‘ruthlessly’ stamp out the rebellion, and that it eliminate all foreign influence in Iraqi affairs, and that the government take immediate steps to enact a law for compulsory military service. The next week, 49 Kurdish tribal chieftains joined in a pro-conscription telegram to the government, expressing thanks for punishing the ‘Assyrian insurgents’, stating that a "nation can be proud of itself only through its power, and since evidence of this power is the army," they requested compulsory military service. Rashid Ali presented the bill to the parliament. His government fell before it was legislated and Jamil Midfai’s government enacted conscription in January 1934.

The massacre would eventually lead to 15,000 Assyrians leaving the Nineveh Plains for neighboring French Mandate of Syria, and create 35 new villages on the banks of the Khabur river.

Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term genocide, was directly influenced by the story of this massacre. The Simele massacre inspired Lemkin to create the concept of "Genocide". In 1933, Lemkin made a presentation to the Legal Council of the League of Nations conference on international criminal law in Madrid, for which he prepared an essay on the Crime of Barbarity as a crime against international law. The concept of the crime, which later evolved into the idea of genocide, was based the Simele massacre, the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust.

Assyrian Resistance to German Domination in World War II

The British and Soviet Allies used the Iraq Levies, many of whom were Assyrians, to resist German efforts to gain a foothold in the Middle East. The Iraq Levies distinguished themselves in May 1941 during the Anglo-Iraqi War.

In the early days of World War II, Rashid Ali al-Gaylani came to power as Prime Minister of Iraq. As one of his first acts, he sent an Iraqi artillery force to confront the RAF base situated in Habbaniya, RAF Habbaniya. By the end of April, the Iraqi armed forces were situated in strong positions on the escarpment above the base and a siege began.

Mohammad Amin al-Husayni ( 1895/1897 - July 4 1974), was the choice of the Nazis and Italian fascists to make inroads into the Middle East, including Iraq. A veteran of the Ottoman army, from 1921 to 1948 he was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

As early as 1920, al-Husayni was active in both opposing the British in order to secure the independence of Palestine as an Arab State and opposing Jewish immigration and the establishment of their National home in Palestine. His oppositional role peaked during the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. In 1937, wanted by the British, he fled Palestine and took refuge successively in Lebanon, Iraq, Italy and finally Nazi Germany where he met Adolf Hitler in 1941. He asked Germany to oppose, as part of the Arab struggle for independence, the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.

al-Husayni was still in the Kingdom of Iraq when, on 1 April 1941, pro-German Rashid Ali and his pro-German "Golden Square" supporters staged a coup d'etat. The 1941 Iraqi coup d'état caused the pro-British Regent Abdul Ilah to flee and the pro-British Prime Minister Taha al-Hashimi to resign. From his base in Iraq, al-Husayni issued a fatwa for a holy war against Britain in May. Less than days later, the Rashid Ali government collapsed, Regent Abdul Ilah returned, and British troops occupied the country.

Iraq had been a major supplier of petroleum to the Allied war effort and represented an important landbridge between British forces in Egypt and India. To secure Iraq, Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered General Archibald Wavell to protect the air base at Habbaniya.

During 1940/41 Iraq joined the Axis powers and the Battle of Habbaniya took place. At Habbaniya, the besieging Iraqis demanded the cessation of all training activities and of all flights in and out of the base.

The commander at RAF Habbaniya, Air Vice-Marshal Harry George Smart, responded to the Iraqi demands by launching a pre-emptive strike against the Iraqi forces overlooking the air base. During the Rashid Ali rebellion in 1941 the base was besieged by the Iraqi Army encamped on the overlooking plateau. The subsequent arrival of a relief column (Kingcol), part of Habforce sent from Palestine, then a British mandate, combined with the Habbaniya units to force the rebel forces to retreat to Baghdad. The Levies then recruited an additional 11,000 men, mostly Assyrians but also some Kurd and Yezidi.

The siege was lifted by the units based at Habbaniya, including pilots from the training school, a battalion of the King's Own Royal Regiment flown in at the last moment, Number 1 Armoured Car Company RAF, and the RAF's Iraq Levies. This action initiated the Anglo-Iraqi War. Within a week, the Iraqis abandoned the escarpment. By mid-May, British forces from Habbaniya had moved on to Fallujah and, after overcoming Iraqi resistance there, moved on to Baghdad. On 29 May, fearing a British onslaught, Gaylani fled to Persia.

As a result, al-Husayni fled to pro-German Persia where he was granted legation asylum first by the Empire of Japan and then by Fascist Italy. On October 8, after the occupation of Persia by the Allies and after the new Persian government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi severed diplomatic relations with the Axis powers, al-Husayni fled to German-occupied Europe. Specifically, he fled to Fascist Italy with the Italian diplomats who provided him with an Italian service passport. To avoid recognition, al-Husayni changed his appearance by shaving his beard and dying his hair.

Throughout the remainder of World War II, al-Husayni repeatedly made requests in Berlin for "the German government to bomb Tel Aviv." Al-Husayni arrived in Rome on October 11, 1941, and immediately contacted Italian Military Intelligence (Servizio Informazioni Militari, or SIM). The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem claimed to be head of a secret Arab nationalist organization with offices in all Arab countries. On condition that the Axis powers "recognize in principle the unity, independence, and sovereignty, of an Arab state, including Iraq, Syria, Palestine, and Transjordan", he offered support in the war against Britain and stated his willingness to discuss the issues of "the Holy Places, Lebanon, the Suez Canal, and Aqaba". The Italian foreign ministry approved the mufti's proposal, recommending to give him a grant of one million lire, and referred him to Benito Mussolini, who met al-Husayni on October 27. According to the mufti's account, the meeting went amicably with the Italian leader expressing his hostility to the Jews and Zionism.

Back in the summer of 1940 and again in February 1941, al-Hussayni submitted to the German government a draft declaration of German-Arab cooperation, containing a clause:

Germany and Italy recognize the right of the Arab countries to solve the question of the Jewish elements, which exist in Palestine and in the other Arab countries, as required by the national and ethnic (völkisch) interests of the Arabs, and as the Jewish question was solved in Germany and Italy.

Now, encouraged by his meeting with the Italian leader, al-Husayni prepared a draft declaration, affirming the Axis support for the Arabs on November 3. In three days, the declaration, slightly amended by the Italian foreign ministry, received the formal approval of Mussolini and was forwarded to the German embassy in Rome. On November 6, al-Husayni arrived in Berlin, where he discussed the text of his declaration with Ernst von Weizsäcker and other German officials. In the final draft, which differed only marginally from al-Husayni's original proposal, the Axis powers declared their readiness to approve the elimination (Beseitigung) of the Jewish National Home in Palestine.

On November 20, al-Husayni met the German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and was officially received by Adolf Hitler on November 28. He asked Hitler for a public declaration that "recognized and sympathized with the Arab struggles for independence and liberation, and that would support the elimination of a national Jewish homeland". Hitler refused to make such a public announcement, saying that it would strengthen the Gaullists against the Vichy France, but asked al-Husayni to 'to lock ...deep in his heart' the following points, which Browning summarizes as follows, that

‘Germany has resolved, step by step, to ask one European nation after the other to solve its Jewish problem, and at the proper time, direct a similar appeal to non-European nations as well'.

When Germany had defeated Russia and broken through the Caucasus into the Middle East, it would have no further imperial goals of its own and would support Arab liberation...

But Hitler did have one goal.

Germany’s objective would then be solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere under the protection of British power.

(Das deutsche Ziel würde dann lediglich die Vernichtung des im arabischen Raum unter der Protektion der britischen Macht lebenden Judentums sein).

In short, Jews were not simply to be driven out of the German sphere but would be hunted down and destroyed even beyond it,.’

David Yisrael (also quoting Browning) says that the statement made by Hitler on 28 November, 1941 was that at the moment of Arab liberation

"Germany had no interest there other than the destruction of the power protecting the Jews" (die Vernichtung der das Judentum protegierenden Macht).

The Mufti's own diary, seized after the war, and his later recollections recall the encounter in slightly different terms.



The Mufti was in Berlin during the war, but later denied knowing of the Holocaust. One of Adolf Eichmann's deputies, Dieter Wisliceny, stated after the war that he had actively encouraged the extermination of European Jews, and that he had had an elaborate meeting with Eichmann at his office, during which Eichmann gave him an intensive look at the current state of the “Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe” by the Third Reich. This testimony was denied by Eichmann at his 1961 trial in Jerusalem. Eichmann stated that he had only been introduced to the Mufti during an official reception, along with all other department heads. In the final judgement, the Jerusalem court stated: "In the light of this partial admission by the Accused, we accept as correct Wisliceny's statement about this conversation between the Mufti and the Accused. In our view it is not important whether this conversation took place in the Accused's office or elsewhere. On the other hand, we cannot determine decisive findings with regard to the Accused on the basis of the notes appearing in the Mufti's diary which were submitted to us.".

Hannah Arendt, who attended the complete Eichmann trial, concluded in her book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil that, "The trial revealed only that all rumours about Eichmann's connection with Haj Amin el Husseini, the former Mufti of Jerusalem, were unfounded."Rafael Medoff concludes that "actually there is no evidence that the Mufti's presence was a factor at all; the Wisliceny hearsay is not merely uncorroborated, but conflicts with everything else that is known about the origins of the Final Solution." Bernard Lewis also called Wisliceny's testimony into doubt: "There is no independent documentary confirmation of Wisliceny's statements, and it seems unlikely that the Nazis needed any such additional encouragement from the outside."

Some recent research, however, apparently argues that al-Husayni did work with Eichmann for the dispatch of a special corps of Einsatz commandos to exterminate the Jews in Palestine, if Rommel managed to break through the British lines in Egypt. Husayni did intervene on May 13, 1943, with the German Foreign Office to block possible transfers of Jews from Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, after reports reached him that 4000 Jewish children accompanied by 500 adults had managed to reach Palestine. He asked that the Foreign Minister "to do his utmost" to block all such proposals and this request was complied with. A year later, on the 25 July, 1944, he wrote to the Hungarian foreign minister to register his objection to the release of certificates for 900 Jewish children and 100 adults for transfer from Hungary, fearing they might end up in Palestine. He suggested that if such transfers of population were deemed necessary, then:-

"it would be indispensable and infinitely preferable to send them to other countries where they would find themselves under active control, as for example Poland, thus avoiding danger and preventing damage."

Among the acts of sabotage al-Husayni attempted to implement, Michael Bar Zohar reports a chemical warfare assault on the second largest and predominantly Jewish city in Palestine, Tel Aviv. According to him, five parachutists were sent with a toxin to dump into the water system. The police caught the infiltrators in a cave near Jericho, and according to Jericho district police commander Fayiz Bey Idrissi, "The laboratory report stated that each container held enough poison to kill 25,000 people, and there were at least ten containers.". Medoff concludes,

Under Husseini's direction, teams of Arab saboteurs were parachuted into Iraq, Transjordan and Palestine, where they attacked Allied facilities such as telephone lines, pipelines, bridges and railways. One such sabotage team was armed with a substantial quantity of poison that they were supposed to dump into the Tel Aviv water system. (In a separate but relatedmatter, the Mufti repeatedly urged the Germans to bomb Tel Aviv and Jerusalem "in order to injure Palestinian Jewry and for propaganda purposes in the Arab world," as his Nazi interlocutors put it. The proposals were rejected as militarily unfeasible.

He is also said to have requested that Jerusalem be bombed by the German air force, a request, according to Walter Laqueur, puts doubts on his religiosity, since, in Walter Laqueur's words, "It is unlikely that a truly pious Muslim would have acted this way."

Wolfgang G. Schwanitz notes that in his memoirs Husayni recalled that Heinrich Himmler, in the summer of 1943, while confiding some German war secrets, inveighed against Jewish "war guilt", and, speaking of Germany’s persecution of the Jews said that "up to now we have exterminated (in Arabic, abadna) around three million of them". In his memoirs, Husayni wrote he was astonished to hear this. Schwanitz doubts the sincerity of his surprise since, he argues, Husayni had publicly declared that Muslims should follow the example Germans set for a "definitive solution to the Jewish problem".

In September 1943, intense negotiations to rescue 500 Jewish children from the town of Arbe in Croatia collapsed due to the objection of the Mufti who blocked the children's departure to Turkey because they would end up in Palestine.

Recent Nazi documents uncovered in the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Military Archive Service in Freiburg [813056] by two researchers, Klaus Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers indicated that in the event of the British being defeated in Egypt by Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps the Nazis had planned to deploy a special unit called Einsatzkommando Ägypten to exterminate Palestinian Jews and that they wanted Arab support to prevent the emergence of a Jewish state. In their book the researchers concluded that, "the most important collaborator with the Nazis and an absolute Arab anti-Semite was Haj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem.'

Throughout World War II, al-Husayni recruited Muslim volunteers for the German armed forces operating in the Balkans. Beginning in 1941, Al-Husayni visited Bosnia, and convinced Muslim leaders that a Muslim S.S. division would be in the interest of Islam. In spite of these and other propaganda efforts, only half of the expected 20,000 to 25,000 Muslims volunteered." Al-Husayni was involved in the organization and recruitment of Bosnian Muslims into several divisions of the Waffen SS and other units. The largest was the 13th "Handschar" division of 21,065 men, which conducted operations against Communist partisans in the Balkans from February 1944, committing numerous atrocities against their traditional ethnic rivals the local Christian Serbs.

In 1942, Husseini helped organize Arab students and North African emigres in Germany into the "Arabisches Freiheitkorps," an Arab Legion in the German Army that hunted down Allied parachutists in the Balkans and fought on the Russian front.

On March 1, 1944, while speaking on Radio Berlin, al-Husayni said: 'Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you.'

After the Second World War, al-Husayni fled to Switzerland, was detained and expelled back to Germany, was captured by the French and put under house arrest in France after he was sentenced by the Yugoslav Supreme Military Court to three years imprisonment and two years of deprivation of civil rights as convicted war criminal. In 1946, Husayni escaped and was given asylum in Egypt. Jewish groups petitioned the British to have him indicted as a war criminal. The British declined because such a move would have added to their growing problems in Egypt and among Palestinians - where al-Husayni was still popular.

By 1942, the Iraq Levies consisted of a Headquarters, a Depot, Specialist Assyrian companies, 40 service companies and the 1st Parachute Company, which consisted of 75% Assyrian and 25% Kurd. The new Iraq Levies disciplinary code was based largely on the Indian Army Act. The Levies had 22 Assyrian companies, 5 Mixed Assyrian/Yizidi companies, 10 Kurdish companies, 4 Gulf Arab companies and 3 Baluchi companies. Eleven Assyrian companies served in World War II-era Palestine and another four served in Cyprus. The Parachute Company was attached to the Royal Marine Commando and were active in both Albania and Greece. The Iraq Levies was renamed the Royal Air Force Levies.

In 1945 after the Second World War 1945- the Iraq Levies were reduced to 60 British officers and 1,900 other ranks and the RAF Regiment took over command of the Levies. In 1946 the Iraq Levies battalions were redesignated as Wings and Squadrons to conform to the RAF Regiment procedure.

Citations

1. Baumer, Church of the East, at 262
2. Naayem, Shall This Nation Die? (New York, 1921)
3. Yusuf Malik, The British Betrayal of the Assyrians (1935), http://www.aina.org/books/bbota.htm.
4. Lord James Bryce, British Government Report on the Armenian Massacres of April-December 1915
5. Joseph Naayem, Shall This Nation Die? 147 (New York, 1921)
6. Baumer, The Church of the East, p. 263; David Gaunt, Massacres, Resistance, Protectors 58-63, 73-75, 81, 98, 109, 121, 130, 141, 145, 148, 164, 192-96, 226-30, 244, 250-56, 265-66 (2006); Amill Gorgis, Der Völkermord an den Syro-Aramäern, in Verfolgung, Vertreibung und Vernichtung der Christen im Osmanischen Reich 120-22 (Tessa Hoffman ed., London and Berlin: LIT Verlag 2004); Travis, "Native Christians Massacred", pp. 331-38, 342-43; Gabriele Yonan, Ein vergessener Holocaust: Die Vernichtung der christlichen Assyrer in der Türkei 269, 277, 279 (Göttingen: Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker, 1989)
7. http://www.aina.org/aol/martyr.htm
8. Akçam, Taner. A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility, pg. 201. ISBN 080508665X
9. Rev. Joseph Naayem, O.I. - Shall This Nation Die?, 1921
10. Joseph Yacoub, La question assyro-chaldéenne, les Puissances européennes et la SDN (1908–1938), 4 vol., thèse Lyon, 1985, p. 156.
11. Hannibal Travis, 'Native Christians Massacred': The Ottoman Genocide of the Assyrians During World War I, Genocide Studies and Prevention, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 335, 337, December 2006 [1]
12. The Plight of Religious Minorities: Can Religious Pluralism Survive? - Page 51 by United States Congress
13. The Armenian Genocide: Wartime Radicalization Or Premeditated Continuum - Page 272 edited by Richard Hovannisian
14. Not Even My Name: A True Story - Page 131 by Thea Halo
15. The Political Dictionary of Modern Middle East by Agnes G. Korbani
16. Hannibal Travis, 'Native Christians Massacred': The Ottoman Genocide of the Assyrians During World War I, Genocide Studies and Prevention, Vol. 1, No. 3, p. 327, December 2006 [2]
17. Ibid., pp. 335, 337
18. Baumer, Church of the East, at 263
19. Hannibal Travis (2006), "Native Christians Massacred": The Ottoman Genocide of the Assyrians During World War I, Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal, vol. 1.3, pp. 334, 337-38. DOI:10.3138/YV54-4142-P5RN-X055
20. The Assyrian Levies (2008), http://assyrianlevies.com/gpage1.html
21. The Tragedy of the Assyrians By R. S. Stafford - Page - 59
22. A Modern History of the Kurds - Page 178 by David MacDowall - 2004
23. Malik, British Betrayal of the Assyrians, appendix 1.
24. Britain, Iraq and the Assyrians: The Nine Demands By Stavros T. Stavridis
25. The biography of brave Assyrians in Habbanyia
26. Reeva S. Simon, Iraq Between the Two World Wars: The Militarist Origins of Tyranny (2004).
27. Nestorian Patriarchs
28. Iraq Between the Two World Wars: The Militarist Origins of Tyranny by Reeva Spector Simon
29. International Journal of Middle East Studies , "The Assyrian Affair of 1933", by Khaldun S. Husry, 1974[3]
30. Assyrian International News Agency
31. "Modern Aramaic Dictionary & Phrasebook" By Nicholas Awde. Page 11.
32. Majed Eshoo, "The Fate Of Assyrian Villages Annexed To Today's Dohuk Governorate In Iraq"
33. International Federation for Human Rights — " Displaced persons in Iraqi Kurdistan and Iraqi refugees in Iran", 2003.
34. "The Origins and Developments of Assyrian Nationalism", Committee on International Relations Of the University of Chicago, by Robert DeKelaita [4]
35. "Iraq and the Problem of the Assyrians", By R. S. Stafford, International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1931-1939), Vol. 13, No. 2 (Mar. - Apr., 1934), pp. 159-185 [5]
36. The Ottoman Peoples and the End of Empire, by Justin MacCarthy
37. Iraq Between the Two World Wars: The Militarist Origins of Tyranny, Reeva S. Simon, 2004
38. Minorities in the Middle East: a history of struggle and self-expression By Mordechai Nisan
39. Raphael Lemkin - EuropeWorld, 22/6/2001
40. The Man Who Invented Genocide: The Public Career and Consequences of Raphael Lemkin, by James Joseph Martin. Page 166. 1984.
41. Raphael Lemkin — EuropeWorld, 22/6/2001.
42. The Tragedy of the Assyrians By R. S. Stafford - Page 59
43. Newsreel Die Deutsche Wochenschau, December 10, 1941, Nr. 588, Excerpt in video images.
44. Lewis (1999), p. 150
45. Lewis (1995), 351.
46. Lewis (1999), pp. 150-151
47. Black, Edwin. "Denial of Holocaust nothing new in Iran." SFGate. 8 January 2006. 27 May 2008.
48. Lewis (1984), p.190.
49. Lewis (1999), pp. 151-152
50. Segev (2001), p. 463
51. Lewis (1999), p. 152
52. Lewis (1984), p.190.
53. Christopher Browning, with Jürgen Matthäus, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942. University of Nebraska Press, 2004 p.406, drawing on David Yisraeli, The Palestine Problem in German Politics, 1889-1945 p. 310. In his note to the text p.539 n.107, Browning records that Fritz Grobba's recollection is slightly different and less specific: 'At the moment of Arab liberation, Germany had no interest there other than the destruction of the power protecting the Jews’(die Vernichtung der das Judentum protegierenden Macht).ISBN 0803213271
54. Yisraeli, David The Palestine Problem in German Politics, 1889-1945 p. 310 quoted in Browning, Christopher R. (2004). The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0803213271 p. 539.
55. 'It is clear that the Jews have accomplished nothing in Palestine and their claims are lies. Everything that has been achieved in Palestine is due to the Arabs and not the Jews. I (Hitler) have decided to find a solution to the Jewish problem, approaching it step by step without holding back. In this regard, I am about to make a just and indispensable appeal, firstly to all the European countries and, later, to countries outside of Europe'. Henry Laurens, La Question de Palestine, vol.2 ibid.pp.664-5 n.47, citing the source from the archives of the Simon Wiesenthal Center
56. al-Husayni's own recollections of the period are contained in his memoirs, Mudhakkirat al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni, Damascus 1999 and in the conversations with Zuhair al-Mardini, Filastin wa al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni, Beirut 1986. Much of the latter material is now available in Henry Laurens,Le Retour des exilés, la lutte pour la Palestine de 1869 à 1997,Robert Laffont-Bouquins, Paris 1998 pp.547-561, which, on p.556 reproduces these remarks from the conversation:'The suppression of the Jewish national homeland is part of my battle. .They wish to build a central state which will become the base for their activities and destructive purposes. They wish to abolish other states, all the nations of the world. One thing is certain, the Jews will not undertake constructive work in Palestine. Their propaganda is full of lies. Everything that has been built in Palestine since prehistorical times is the work of Arabs and not of Jews. Their nature does not allow them to be builders and I've decided to find at all costs a precise and final solution to the Jewish problem. I shall first call on all the states of Europe, and then on those outside of Europe, to work together to put a definitive end to world Judaism, which represents a dangerous threat for the entire world'. Cited also, Henry Laurens, La Question de Palestine vol.2 p.p.465-466
57. Eichmann trial: The Judgment
58. Eichmann had, indeed, been sent to Palestine in 1937, but that was on office business at a time when he was not even a commissioned officer. Apparently it concerned the Ha'avara Agreement for Jewish immigration into Palestine from Germany. As for contacting the Arab rebels in Palestine, or their leader the Mufti, Eichmann was turned back by the British authorities at the Egyptian border. It is doubtful whether Eichmann made contact with the Mufti even in 1942, when the latter resided in Berlin. If this fallen idol makes an occasional appearance in Eichmann's office correspondence it is because Eichmann's superiors at the Foreign Office found the Mufti a very useful sacred cow, always to be invoked when the reception of Jewish refugees in Palestine was under discussion. Dieter Wisliceny even believed that Eichmann regarded the Mufti as a colleague in a much expanded post-war Final Solution.' G.Reitlinger, The Final Solution, ibid. pp. 27-28
59. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.(1963) Viking Press, New York 1965 p.13
60. Medoff, Rafael (1996). The Mufti's Nazi Years Re-examined. The Journal of Israeli History, vol. 17. No. 3.
61. Lewis (1999), p. 156
62. „Hätte Erwin Rommel 1942 die Truppen seines Gegners, des britischen Feldmarschalls Montgomery, in Ägypten geschlagen und wäre anschließend bis nach Palästina vorgedrungen, hätte das Einsatzkommando den Auftrag erhalten, die Juden in Palästina zu töten. Das Einsatzkommando sollte nach dem Muster der NS-Einsätze in Osteuropa arbeiten; dabei waren hunderttausende von Juden in der Sowjetunion und anderen Ländern Osteuropas ermordet worden. Die Nationalsozialistischen Machthaber wollten sich die Deutschfreundlichkeit der palästinensischen Araber für ihre Pläne zunutze machen. ‚Bedeutendster Kollaborateur der Nationalsozialisten und zugleich ein bedingungsloser Antimsemit auf arabischer Seit war Haj Amin el-Husseini, der Mufti von Jerusalem‘, schreiben Mallmann und Cüppers. In seiner Person habe sich exemplarisch gezeigt, ‚welch entscheidende Rolle der Judenhass im Projekt der deutsch-arabischen Verständigung einnahm.‘ El-Husseini habe unter anderem bei mehreren Treffen mit Adolf Eichmann Details der geplanten Morde festgelegt.“ (‘If Erwin Rommel had defeated the troops of his opponent, the British Field Marshal Montgomery, in Egypt in 1942 and then advanced into Palestine, the task force (Einsatzkommando) would have received the order to kill the Jews in Palestine. The task force was meant to operate according to the model of the Nazi task forces in eastern Europe: in this process hundreds of thousands of Jews in the Soviet Union and other countries of eastern Europe had been murdered. The Nazi rulers wanted to make use of the pro-German sentiments of the Palestinian Arabs for their plans. “The most significant collaborator of the National Socialists, and at the same time an absolute anti-Semite, on the Arab side was Haj Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem,” to quote Malmann and Cuppers. “What a decisive role hatred of the Jews occupied in the project of German–Arab understanding” was exemplified in the person of al-Husayni, who during several meetings with Adolf Eichmann had, among other things, established the details of the planned murders.") (http://www.uni-stuttgart.de/aktuelles/presse/2006/36.html
63. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, (1961) New Viewpoints, New York 1973 p.504
64. Joseph Schechtman, The Mufti and the Führer, ibid. pp.154-155
65. http://www.wymaninstitute.org/articles/2003-03-chemical.php
66. Medoff, Rafael (1996). The Mufti's Nazi Years Re-examined. The Journal of Israeli History, vol. 17. No. 3, citing "Michael Bar-Zohar and Eitan Haber, The Quest for the Red Prince, New York, 1988, pp. 45-66. A British intelligence report on the interrogation of two captured members of one of the Mufti's sabotage teams is reprinted in The Arab War Effort: A Documented Account, New York, 1947, pp. 43-46. Internal German correspondence on this subject [the proposed bombing of Palestine], in German and in English translation, is appended to The Nation Associates, The Record of Collaboration of King Farouk of Egypt with the Nazis and Their Ally The Mufti: Memorandum Submitted to the United Nations, June 1948, New York, 1948.
67. Walter Laqueur The Origins of Fascism: Islamic Fascism, Islamophobia, Antisemitism 2006
68. Wolfgang G. Schwanitz 'Amin al-Husaini and the Holocaust. What Did the Grand Mufti Know?' May 8, 2008, citing Abd al-Karim al-Umar (ed.), Memoirs of the Grand Mufti, Damascus in 1999, p.126
69. Daniel Carpi, The Rescue of Jews in the Italian Zone of Occupied Croatia, Shoah Resource Center, page 39
70. Nazis planned Holocaust in Palestine: historians - Expatica
71. The Black Book of Bosnia by Nader Mousavizadeh, (Editor), Basic Books, New York, 1996, p. 23
72. Pearlman (1947), p. 51
73. Sachar (1961), p.231
74. Stillman (2000), p.143

Sources

Primary sources

• Ismet Inönü, Cable sent from Ismet Inönü, head of the Turkish delegation in Lausanne, to the Turkish government. Cable No. 353, January 15, 1923. See the original Ottoman text in [813057].

Secondary sources

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See also

• Anglo-Iraqi War
• Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
• World War I