Local Muslim militias aren’t the only ones taking on the Islamic State group as it continues its military spread through Iraq.
Christians driven from their homes by the fighting have also formed their own brigade, battling alongside anti-ISIS Muslim militias in hopes of exacting revenge and taking back their city.
"[They] displaced us from our houses, they took our money, killed our young men and women and they took our properties," the group's commander, Rayan Al-Kildani, told NBC News. "Therefore, Christians decided to fight the terrorists of ISIS."
The militia, about 1,000 men strong, calls itself the Bablyon Brigades. It is the only Christian militia fighting with the Popular Mobilization Forces, an Iranian and Iraqi state-sponsored and almost exclusively Shiite umbrella of brigades fighting ISIS. The Babylon Brigades formed in June 2014, immediately after Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, fell to the militant group.
"ISIS terrorists do not differentiate among Christians, Muslims, Sunnis and Shiites – they kill everyone," Al-Kildani told NBC. "We have to help our Muslim brothers liberate Iraq."
Christians wanting to take up arms against ISIS are increasingly turning toward Shiite militias, as theInternational Business Times reported from Lebanon earlier this year. Whereas other armed groups have financial support from other countries, Christians rely on allying themselves with Muslim militias.
Fighters who spoke with NBC said Iraq had a strong history of religious coexistence – a peace that was brutally upended as ISIS pushed some 125,000 Christians from their homes in a 10-month span, according to CBS News. When ISIS took over Mosul, they demanded Christians be subjected to a crippling tax or leave the city by foot. Subsequently, significant Christian artifacts were pillaged and destroyed.
For the first time in 2,000 years, there are no Christians left in Mosul, as the city became an early snapshot of what ISIS control would mean for other cities cross Iraq and Syria that would later fall to its forces. ISIS imposed a stringent interpretation of Islamic Law and responded to dissent with harsh corporal punishment.
"I found myself in a position to fight in order to restore what we lost," Yousef Hani Shamon, a 27-year-old who fled the city by foot, told NBC. "ISIS terrorists are our enemy. They targeted our religion and that is why I have to fight them."
This month, Shiite militias and the Iraqi military launched a counter-offensive to recapture Iraq's Anbar province from ISIS. Much of the fighting has focused on the outskirts of Fallujah, a strategically important city whose capture could signal a significant turning point for the anti-ISIS forces. It was unclear whether the Christian brigade was involved in any of the recent fighting in Anbar.
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