Ironically, the Arabs and Kurds had also assisted the British, but only the Assyrians remained loyal to the British as levies. During the British Mandate of Mesopotamia Assyrian Levies were used by the British to protect their interests and to put down Arab and Kurdish insurrections. The outbreak of the Second World War found 40,000 Assyrian soldiers fighting for the British. In the Anglo-Iraqi War, the Assyrians played a decisive role in providing Britain with the much needed manpower to defeat the pro-Nazi Arab rebel forces in the region; another example of Assyrian participation in the war was a mission in Sarandë, Albania in 1945, when 75 per cent of a paratrooper attack was composed of Assyrian troops, the rest being Kurds.