Jihadist mercenaries controlled by Turkey attacked the village of Um al-Kayf near Til Temir at around 12:30 on Wednesday. The Syriac Military Council launched a counterattack in self-defense. Several jihadists were injured in the ensuing battle and the attackers were repulsed.

The military council of the predominantly Christian-populated town of Til Temir in northeastern Syria had already prevented an attempt of the jihadists to infiltrate in Um al-Kayf at the end of November. The town is located about five kilometers west of Til Temir.

The history of Til Temir

The Khabur river extends along the Khabur valley in the northeast of Syria. Here, where the town of Til Temir (Kurdish name: Girê Xurma), a reflection of the population mosaic of Syria, is located, the Nestorians - Assyrians from (Hakkari - who had fled to northern Iraq during the genocide of Christians in the Ottoman Empire between 1914 and 1918, settled in 1933. The League of Nations in Geneva awarded them the settlement area. Their second exodus was preceded by the Simele massacre: some 9000 Assyrians, mainly men and young people, were murdered in various villages in the Duhok region. The village of Simele, which was particularly affected, gave its name to this genocide. There, under the leadership of the Iraqi military, some 350 people died.

The Assyrians from Hakkari founded 33 villages in the flat valley of the Khabur, while Chaldean Christians settled in another three villages. Before the beginning of the Syrian war in 2011, about 20,000 Assyrian Christians were still living here, in almost every village there was a church. Now there are not even 1,000 people left. Because of the jihadists almost all inhabitants fled abroad, most went to Canada, Australia or the US. Some of the villages are completely empty, those who stayed are mostly elderly people. Also, several hundred internally displaced persons from other regions of the country now live in Til Temir.