MENA Minorities

Swedish Journalist Carl Drott provides a fascinating account of the Dawronoye , a Christian guerrilla force, operating in Turkey, Iraq and Syria. Read all about its roots in the Turkish far left of the 1980s, its relationship with the Kurdish PKK and how its caders helped to set up the Syriac Military Council. Noteworthy is how the fighters interviewed were annoyed by the ongoing argument in the diaspora, whether they should call themselves Syriacs, Assyrian or Aramean. The Revolutionaries of Bethnahrin  by Carl Drott, War Scapes

At Syria Comment Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi provides a solid overview about current militia-related minority dynamics in Syria briefly touching Alawites (including muqawama as-Suriya ), Druze and Christians (in a SSNP- and an Assyrian context). Minority Dynamics in Syria by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, Syria Comment

Swedish journalist Carl Drott, whose work for Syria in Crisis  has been mentioned here already, wrote two pieces fresh from the field about the current situation of the Syriac Christians in Qamishli and provides some background on the split of the Sutoro/Sootoro militia in a pro-Kurdish (Sutoro) and a pro-regime (Sootoro) wing. According to Drott the Sutoro is currently growing and setting up branches in other towns of Hasaka province as well. "Syriac-Kurdish Cooperation in Northeast Syria" by Carl Drott "A Syriac Militia Splits in Qamishli" by Carl Drott

Agenfor Media , an Italian   non-profit network, published an interesting video report about   Europeans of Syriac heritage who are fighting inside Christan militias in Syria.  Among them is a former Swiss soldier, who is working as an instructor for the Syriac Sotoro militia in the eastern province of Hasaka. The video is in Italian but there is also a BBC Arabic report and multiple newspaper articles on that issue ( link ). Al-Monito r: "European Christians fighting with Syria Kurdish factions "