Iranian-Backed Militias Pick Up Where ISIS Left Off, Terrorizing Iraq's Christians

This week, across many towns of Iraq, Christians are preparing to celebrate Easter.

In Qaraqosh, Iraq's largest Christian town, hundreds of people chanted 'Hosanna' and waved palm and olive branches on Palm Sunday.

In 2014, Qaraqosh, like so many other Christian communities across northern Iraq, was overrun by ISIS militants, forcing hundreds of thousands of Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities to flee.

Since the defeat of ISIS, some Christian families are beginning to move back.

But Carl Anderson, CEO of the Knights of Columbus, tells CBN News that with the fall of ISIS, a different menace is now taking its place in Iraq's Christian towns.

"Iranian-backed militias are occupying many of the formerly Christian towns and making it virtually impossible for Christians to come back in," Anderson, who just returned from northern Iraq, told CBN News. "What ISIS failed to accomplish, that is to have a religious cleansing of Christians in the area, Iran, through their surrogates, may accomplish still."

Watch CBN News Worldbeat above for more.