ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A Christian movement that has forces engaged in the fight against ISIS threatened to withdraw its “heroes” from the battle zones if Baghdad fails to reveal information about the perpetrators of a deadly attack on Christians and Yazidis in the Iraqi capital late Friday night, killing 9 people.

“We strongly condemn the attack,” said Rian Chaldean, Secretary General for the Babylon Movement, in a statement published on his Facebook account on Saturday. “Killing 8 Christians and one Yazidi resident was one of the most horrible terror crimes.”





“We ask security in charge of Baghdad and police to disclose who’s behind the crime, and also arrest the criminals,” Rian added in the statement, threatening to withdraw a number of its forces who are fighting ISIS in the country.





“If security officials failed to disclose the ones who committed the crime… we will withdraw some of our heroes from the battle zones against Daesh,” Rian said, using an alternate acronym for ISIS.





The head of Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Foreign Relations Department condemned the attack.





“I strongly condemn killing of 8 Christians and one Ezidi(Yazidi) on Christmas Eve,” Falah Mustafa, tweeted on Saturday. “My heart goes out to their families and loved ones.”





The attack in Baghdad comes as Christians across Iraq were preparing for Christmas celebrations.





“We appreciate your gifts of Christmas at a time when terror acts are escalating, displacing Christians, making them evacuate from Babylon, Assyria and Hammurabi,” Rian said in his statement.





The Babylon Movement is a Christian Chaldean group of fighters mostly embedded with Shiite forces, fighting ISIS south and west of Mosul.