Chapter 2 shifts the focus from urban centers to the rural north during the early Iraqi republican period (1961–75). The chapter complicates the traditional understanding of the Kurdish uprising as an exclusively nationalist movement, demonstrating that Assyrians, as well as Communists who survived the coup, were significant actors in this conflict. Starting in 1961, Assyrians like Margaret George joined the Kurdish opposition, and local Assyrian parties moved north after being denied registration in Baghdad. As the civil war continued, cooperation between the Kurds and Assyrians expanded transnationally. But the civil war had devastating consequences: depopulation of the countryside, the destruction of villages, and the loss of religious and cultural sites in northern Iraq.