In early 1933, the American representative in Iraq, Paul Knabenshue, described public animosity towards the Assyrians as reaching a 'fever' pitch. With Iraq's independence, the new Assyrian spiritual-temporal leader, Shimun XXI Eshai, demanded that the Assyrians be given autonomy within Iraq, seeking support from Britain. He pressed his case before the League of Nations in 1932. His followers planned to resign from the Assyrian Levies (a levy under the command of the British, serving British interests), and to re-group as a militia and concentrate in the north, creating a de facto Assyrian enclave. In June 1933, the Patriarch was invited to Baghdad for negotiations with Hikmat Sulayman's government and was detained there after refusing to relinquish temporal authority. Mar Shimun would eventually be exiled to Cyprus, thus forcing the head of the Assyrian Church of the East to be located in Chicago up until 2015, when it was moved to Erbil.
