Posted on 04/08/2015 10:01:44 AM PDT by dennisw
VanDyke has just finished leading his new military contracting firm through its first assignment -- training Christian volunteers to take on jihadists.
Funded by Christian groups from abroad, mainly from the United States, the Nineveh Plains Protection Unit (NPU) aims to bring a local Christian militia to bear against the Islamic State group that has seized swathes of Iraq and Syria.
VanDyke is one of the best-known -- and least camera-shy -- figures in an expanding and complex constellation of foreign fighters, organisations and donors getting involved in a private war against the jihadists.
The NPU, for example, is being funded by the American Mesopotamian Organization (AMO), a California-based group founded by Assyrian-Americans.
It claims to have raised more than $250,000 for the NPU -- which has not yet seen combat -- since December through an initiative dubbed "Restore Nineveh Now".
More than 80 percent of the donations come from the United States, the group's chairman, David Lazar, told AFP by telephone from the United States.
He says telethons on the Assyrian National Broadcasting satellite channel generated donations "as high as $50,000 from one person".
As well as financing food, clothing and protection gear, the AMO has hired a "top five" private contracting firm to provide risk assessments and possibly advanced training to NPU recruits, he says.
Many of the donations are coming from members of the Assyrian-American community, like Joseph Baba, a car salesman from Tehran who has lived in the US since 2000 who donated a little less than $10,000 to the group.
"I'm a firm believer that the Middle East has to have this indigenous population," he says of Iraq's Christians, speaking to AFP by telephone from his home in California.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Rough men standing ready to do violence. Necessary in our times.
Check out the story in the Religion forum “Iraqi Christians Form Militia to Fight ISIS” http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3253915/posts.
The story has a link to the Nineveh Plains Protection Units. This goes to Restore Nineveh Now, http://www.restoreninevehnow.org, which also has links (About Us > The Coalition) to various groups supporting the Christians and Yezidis in Iraq. So you can contribute for guns or food or both as your conscience dictates. Deus lo vult.
Sounds like a good idea to me.
Just watch. Obama will try to put a stop to it. Mark my words.
This group will be labelled a terrorist organization by our government.
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