The Assyrian presence in Iran goes back 4,000 years to ancient times, and
Assyria was involved in the history of
Ancient Iran even before the arrival of the modern
Iranian peoples to the region circa 1000 BC. During the
Old Assyrian Empire (c.2025-1750 BC) and
Middle Assyrian Empire (1365-1020 BC) the Assyrians ruled over parts of
Pre-Iranic northern and western Iran. The
Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-605 BC) saw Assyria conquer the
Iranic Persians,
Medes and
Parthians into their empire, together with the ancient
pre-Iranic Elamites,
Kassites,
Manneans and
Gutians, and also the Iranic
Cimmerians of
Asia Minor and
Scythians of the
Caucasus. The home of the Assyrians in Iran has traditionally been along the western shore of
Lake Urmia from the
Salmas area to the Urmia plain. Many emigrated after the revolution in 1979, but at least 50,000 were estimated to be still in Iran in 1987. In 1900, Assyrians numbered over 76,000 in northwestern Iran, constituting over a quarter of the Azerbaijan province's population and were the largest non-Muslim majority in
Urmia. Of the 300 villages around Urmia, 60 were exclusively Assyrians and 60 were mixed villages with Assyrian, Armenian, and Azeri communities. Nevertheless, there were over 115 documented Assyrian villages to the west of
Lake Urmia prior to 1918. This genocide that started in 1914 was said to be started with the Ottomans’ ‘Jihad’ declaration, apparently solely based on its ethnic and religious differences with the Assyrians because of their belief in Christianity, but actually there was an ambition to extend their ‘holy war’ beyond Assyrian territories to spread its Ottoman influences. The Ottomans already implemented massacres of several Assyrian tribes from 1843 to 1845, with the motive of taking over their ancestral lands and making them part of the Ottoman Empire. These tribes were particularly the Tiyari, Tkhuma, Jilu and Baz, who all refused Ottoman command. According to British councils, 10,000 Assyrians were massacred already during this time alone. Women and children were taken while Assyrian leaders were cast out from Ottoman forces. Assyrians felt forced to convert to for example Catholicism or Russian Orthodoxy to receive help from the Russian, French or British. In 1914 alone, they attacked dozens of villages and drove off all the inhabitants of the district of
Gawar. The Assyrians defended themselves and for a time successfully repelled further attacks under the leadership of
Agha Petros, seizing control of much of the Urmia region and defeating Ottoman forces and their Kurdish and Arab allies in the process. However, lack of ammunition and supplies, due mainly to the withdrawal of
Russia from the war, and the collapse of allied Armenian forces led to their downfall. Massively outnumbered, surrounded, undersupplied and cut off, the Assyrians suffered terrible massacres. These included Assyrian deportations close to the Ottoman-Persian border in January 1915, as well as the invasion of several Assyrian tribes located in the Hakkari mountains. This area already suffered numerous massacres in the 1840s. By the summer of 1918 almost all surviving Assyrians had fled to Tehran or to existing Assyrian communities or refugee camps in Iraq such as
Baqubah. Local Kurds and Arabs and took the opportunity of the last phases of World War I to rob Assyrian homes, murder civilians and leave those remaining destitute. The critical murder that sowed panic in the Assyrian community came when Kurdish militias, under
Agha Ismail Simko, assassinated the Patriarch,
Shimun XIX Benyamin, on March 3, 1918, under the pretext of inviting him to negotiations, although the Assyrian leader
Malik Khoshaba exacted revenge upon Simko by attacking and sacking his citadel, forcing the Kurdish leader to flee for his life. ==Religious communities==