Iraqi Assyrians cling to roots even far from home

Isaac Samow's ancestors have occupied Mesopotamia for millennia, surviving innumerable conquests and massacres.

The headstones in the cemetery of his hometown near Mosul, Iraq, document centuries of his family's history there, and the ancient ruins that dot the arid plain near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers tell of his people's role in building humanity's first cities.

Yet another war is now threatening the survival of Assyrian culture and language _ a derivation of the tongue spoken by Jesus _ in its native land.

Among the first converts to Christianity, thousands of Assyrians have fled since the U.S. invasion. Samow's relatives are scattered …