Nineveh province in northern Iraq witnessed military training of Christian militias Monday to fight the Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq, according to Catholic Herald. The Assyrian Democratic Movement, the major political party of Assyrians in Iraq, formed the Nineveh Plain Protection Units (NPU), a militia largely comprised of Christian volunteers created to secure Assyrian and Yezidi lands and to take back what IS has plundered. NPU reportedly consists of 3,000 volunteers in training, in addition to 500 Assyrian troops stationed in northern villages in Iraq. After IS has taken over Mosul and main areas of Christians in June 2014, more than 30,000 Christian families fled from their homes for fear of being killed by the extremists, along with a large number of Yazidis.