Non-Arab communities, mainly Kurds, Turkmen and Assyrians make up somewhere between 20% and 25% of Iraq's population.

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He reflected on the myriad powers that have come and gone in the Fertile Crescent: Assyrians, Babylonians, Romans, Europeans, Saddam's Baathists.

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In the second century BCE the ancient Jews were overrun by the Assyrians, a Greek proxy in the ancient Middle East.

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According to the community, the Bnei Menashe are one of the lost 10 tribes of Israel who were exiled when Assyrians invaded the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8th Century BC.

BBC: Bnei Menashe say they are one of the 10 lost tribes of Israel

Man battled the elements in Mesopotamia, and the desert and its ways of plunder and raiding pushed against urban life, but the land gave rise to powerful kingdoms: the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Sumerians, the Abbasids.

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Strategically positioned on historic trade routes linking East and West, this ancient city has conserved an astounding monumental heritage reflecting the diverse cultures of the peoples that have settled here over millennia including the Hittites, Assyrians, Greeks, Romans, Umayyads, Ayyubids, Mongols, Mamelukes and Ottomans.

UNESCO: The Director-General of UNESCO appeals for the Protection of the World Heritage City of Aleppo | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

Meeting in London this week, some 350 delegates from a motley collection of Kurds, Shias, liberal secularists, monarchists, Turcomans, Assyrians, feminists and others sketched out a vision of a future Iraq that was more coherent than anything they have so far achieved in 12 years of often vicious squabbling.

ECONOMIST: The Iraqi opposition