www.themesopotamian.org

Ninos Nissan Philipos 30, his brother Daniel Nissan Philipos 27, Maher Moneb Hanna 27 and Johnny Youkhana Dawood 30, were murdered in what we had hoped to be an isolated incident. Please see: 

Many are now beginning to ask, whether this wave of assassinations is premeditated and if so, why would anyone want to murder those that are at peace with Iraqis of all ethnicities?

We need to go back to the elections of the interim parliament held on 30 January 2005 as a starting point to see whether we can find any clues. More than 200,000 people in the Plains of Nineveh were denied their newly found democratic rights and were prevented from voting. Only 93 out of the designated 330 polling stations were opened of which many did not receive ballot boxes and supplies that had been stored in Arbil, the KDP controlled area. Reports also surfaced that the KDP lead by Masoud Barzani, had employed terror tactics and the lure of the Dollar to prevent our people from voting in the predominantly Chaldean Assyrian Syriac towns and villages of the Plains of Nineveh, from which the Assyrian Democratic Movement draws overwhelming support. Despite the voting irregularities, the intimidation, the bullying and financial pay-offs, our nation still managed to elect His Excellency Rabi Yonadam Kanna, secretary-general of the Assyrian Democratic Movement as our nation's representative within the parliament of Iraq.

On August 24, following the release of the draft constitution in which our people were specified as two distinct and separate people ­ Chaldeans and Assyrians, thousands of our people demonstrated against this blatant division of a race belonging to one nation, previously referred to as ChaldoAssyrians in the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL). The following extract from a press release by www.aina.org describes what happened next.
"Two days later, the KDP struck back with deadly force. On August 26, 37 year old Nabil Akram Ammona, a resident of Bartilla, was shot twice in the head by KDP paramilitaries while filling his automobile with gasoline (AINA, 8-27-2005). A group of armed KDP security wearing Iraqi National Guard (ING) emblems drove up to Mr. Am ona and forcibly took away the gas nozzle he was using. A bewildered and irritated Mr.Amona protested. Instantly, one of the KDP thugs fired two shots execution style into Mr. Amona's head. Mr. Amona died instantly as he slumped into a pool of his own blood. Local residents were shocked and terrified. Only one, Mr. Mattai Shamoun Zora Sha'ya rushed over to assist and comfort Mr. Amona. The moment he approached, the same Kurd shot Mr. Sha'ya twice in the head as well. Mr. Sha'ya, a father of four, is the nephew of the Syriac Orthodox Bishop of Mar Matti Monastery and is currently in critical condition. He is not expected to survive.
Eyewitnesses at the scene reported that the assailants spoke Kurdish. The same KDP attackers were previously known to have stolen gasoline from the same station for later sale on the black market for their own personal gain. Previous attempts by Assyrian Christians to appeal to the occupying KDP leaders have gone unheeded and unanswered. In recent weeks, the KDP has stepped up a systematic terror campaign against the Shabak and Assyrian Christian residents of the Nineveh Plain. Numerous civilians have been kidnapped for no apparent reason other than to sew fear. Such "arrests" as they have been termed by the KDP occupying powers are widely believed to be used
by the KDP to terrorize the local population into not resisting further expansion of the KDP's occupation of non-
Kurdish areas. On August 19, Bartilla resident Mr. Sahir Ibrahim Shamoun was likewise "arrested" and beaten in the head senseless by KDP thugs using the butt of their pistols. Mr. Shamoun remains in a coma.