Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck
The Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck is an eight-wheel drive, diesel-powered, 10-short-ton, tactical truck used by the US military and others. In evolving configurations, it has been in continuous production since 1982; the M977 HEMTT entered service with the U. S. Army as a replacement for the M520 Goer. By early 2015, more than 27,000 HEMTTs in various configurations had been produced by Oshkosh Defense through either new-build or re-manufactured. Current variants have the A4 suffix; the 10×10 Oshkosh Logistic Vehicle System Replacement is the U. S. Marines’ equivalent to the U. S. Army’s Oshkosh 8×8 HEMTT and Oshkosh 10×10 Palletized Load System; the Marines do not use the HEMTT or PLS, the Army does not use the LVSR, but both services use a common trailer with all three truck types. Following the evaluation of proposals submitted by AM General, MAN, Pacific Car & Foundry and Oshkosh Truck Corporation in May 1981, the U. S. Army Tank Automotive Command awarded an initial five-year contract valued at US$251.13 million to Oshkosh Truck Corporation for production of the 10-short-ton 8×8 Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck.
The first prototype HEMTT was completed in December 1981, pre-production examples followed during March 1982, with the first production vehicles produced in September 1982. Over five contract years, 2,140 vehicles were to be delivered. Contract options allowed for up to an additional 5,351 HEMTTs to be ordered, bringing production totals to 7,490 vehicles; the bulk of these options were exercised. The second HEMTT contract was awarded to Oshkosh Truck Corporation in April 1987; this contract called for a base quantity of 1,403 vehicles, with options for an additional 1,684 vehicles. A supplemental agreement added a further 1,449 vehicles to the second HEMTT contract in April 1989; the third HEMTT production contract was awarded mid-1994 and when deliveries under this concluded over 14,000 HEMTTS had been produced. The fourth HEMTT production contract was awarded in August 1995, this extending production through September 2001; the Family of Heavy Tactical Vehicles contract was awarded to Oshkosh by the U.
S. Army in March 2001. In addition to the HEMTT, the contract covered the M1070 HET, M1074, M1075 Palletized Load System trucks, M1076 PLS trailers and called for up to 5,398 trucks and 1,100 trailers. FHTV covered the production period from March 2001 until mid-fiscal year 2006; the FHTV contract was extended and renegotiated, in February 2007, Oshkosh announced it had been awarded a contract to continue production of FHTVs. The follow-on FHTV contract covered new production of HEMTTs and PLS PLS trailers. In total, 2,173 new-build HEMTT A4 and 104 Recap HEMTT A4 were ordered under FHTV 2. Production of product-improved HEMTT A2s continued until production of the HEMTT A4 began in July 2008; the exception was the M1977, which remained at A2 configuration for fleet commonality reasons. Oshkosh Defense announced in October 2008 that it had been awarded the FHTV 3 contract by the U. S. Army's TACOM. More than 6,000 vehicles and trailers could be delivered under this three-year contract. FHTV 3 covered the HEMTT A4 and A1 models of the PLS and HET, both new and recapitalized vehicles.
HEMTT A4 models were required to be Long Term Armor Strategy compliant and came off the assembly line fitted with upgraded suspensions and integral composite armor, ready to receive an add-on armor appliqué. The first FHTV 3 order was valued at US$1.2 billion and delivery commenced in November 2008. By late-2009, about 11,500 HEMTT A4s had been ordered under the FHTV 3 contracts. Oshkosh Defense announced in 2012 that it had been awarded a bridge contract to continue production and support of the FHTV. In October 2013, the U. S. Army released a revised pre-solicitation notice associated with FHTV 4; the original synopsis had been released in July 2013. According to the October release, the government intends to award a five-year requirements contract with an estimated value of US$822 million on a sole source basis to Oshkosh Corporation, it is understood the aim of the U. S. Army, was to ensure negotiations with Oshkosh Defense for FHTV IV were concluded in time to ensure there was no break in production between FHTV 3 and FHTV IV production and deliveries.
On 19 June 2015, Oshkosh Defense announced the U. S. Army had awarded the company a five-year requirements contract worth a potential $780 million to Recapitalize its Family of Heavy Tactical Vehicles; the FHTV 4 contract covers an estimated 1,800 FHTVs and in addition to HEMTTs covers PLS trucks and includes the production of 1,000 new production PLS trailers. HEMTT models account for around 75 per cent of the Recap potential, all work performed under the contract will be completed in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Deliveries will run from 2015 to 2019. In March 2016, Oshkosh received FHTV 4 awards valued at $430 million and covering the Recap of 1212 HEMTTs and PLS, plus the production of 345 new-build PLS trailers. Deliveries are slated for 2016-2017. In April 2017, Oshkosh announced further FHTV 4 awards valued at more than $258 million for the Recap of 670 FHTVs plus the production of 356 PLS trailers. Deliveries commence in December 2017. On 23 May 2018 Oshkosh announced a further FHTV-4 award, this valued at $235.2 million for the Recap of 410
Haditha
Haditha is a city in the western Iraqi Al Anbar Governorate, about 240 km northwest of Baghdad. It is a farming town situated on the Euphrates River at 34°08′23″N 42°22′41″E, its population of around 25,700 people, predominantly Sunni Muslim Arabs. The city lies near the Buhayrat al Qadisiyyah, an artificial lake, created by the building of the Haditha Dam, the largest hydroelectric facility in Iraq. Haditha is a political district subordinate to the Al Anbar Province; the Haditha District consists of the Sub-Districts of Haditha, the Haqlaniyah Sub-District, the Barwannah Sub-District. Each district is governed by a Sub-District Council; the twenty member sub-district councils elect one of their own to serve as the Council Chairman. They employ other municipal managers such as a Municipal Engineer; the riverbank in the Haditha District is occupied by well irrigated farm plots that produce a large amount of food. Substantial sheep and goat flocks are kept in the area. Further food sources come from fishing the nearby Lake Qadisiya.
Entering the Haditha Sub District, one is to see municipal signs illustrated with a water wheel. These are displayed as a reference to the area's history. Locals suggest that the ancient looking structures on or near the Euphrates River were part of a water wheel structure that dates back to a period of Roman occupation, they claim locals built water wheels to establish a limited aqueduct system similar to the one that served Rome. Whether or not soldiers or citizens of the Roman Empire resided in Haditha is an open question; the Haditha Dam and surrounding areas were secured by U. S. troops in April 2003 as part of the invasion of Iraq. An attack on the dam would have flooded towns along the Euphrates downstream from Haditha, as well as eliminating an important source of electricity. On July 16, 2003 Mohammed Nayil Jurayfi, mayor of Haditha, his youngest son, were assassinated. In 2004, U. S. troops left a local police force in charge of the city and insurgents rounded up dozens of local police officers and publicly executed them in a soccer stadium.
In May 2005, U. S. forces launched Operation New Market in Haditha against the insurgents controlling the city. However, resistance continued. On August 1, 2005, an ambush killed 6 United States Marine snipers, in the city. According to an August 2005 report by The Guardian, the town was controlled by insurgents, with US forces making only fleeting visits every few months. Like Al-Qa'im, it had come under a Taliban-like rule, with Western-style items banned and insurgents collecting the salaries of government employees; this insurgent dominance has continued into 2006. The mayor of Haditha in November 2005 was Emad Jawad Hamza. On 19 November 2005, 24 Iraqi noncombatants, including 11 refile, were killed by 12 Marines from 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines; the US military is investigating these actions, a captain and a lieutenant colonel have been relieved of duty Some allege the massacre was in retribution for an incident earlier in the day in which US Marine Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas was killed in a roadside bomb attack on Marines from Kilo Company.
In August 2006 a commission reviewing the killings found probable cause for charging the Marines. The same day, one of the accused Marines sued Rep. John P. Murtha for libel because of Murtha's characterization of the incident saying the Marines killed the civilians "in cold blood." In 2009, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Rep. John Murtha could not be sued for accusing U. S. Marines of murdering Iraqi civilians "in cold blood." The judges ruled that Murtha was immune from the lawsuit because he was acting in his official role as a lawmaker when he made the comments to reporters. A court-martial on June 4, 2008 acquitted a US Marine for any role in covering up the deaths of 24 civilians in Haditha in Iraq in 2005, while charges were dropped against five other marines in the affair. Lieutenant Andrew Grayson, 27, was declared "not guilty on all charges" by a jury, said a spokesman for the Camp Pendleton military base in southern California where the hearing started on May 28. Grayson had been charged with making false statements and attempting to fraudulently separate from the Marine Corps.
He was charged with obstruction of justice, but the military judge dismissed this charge June 3, 2008. Charges of murder against squad leader Frank Wuterich were changed to the lesser offense of manslaughter. Wuterich's trial has been delayed due to ongoing litigation regarding the prosecution's access to unaired footage from 60 Minutes interview with Wuterich. Lt Colonel Jeffrey Chessani, the highest-ranking officer accused over the incident, had been charged with dereliction of duty and violation of a lawful order. On June 17, 2008 Military Judge Colonel Steven Folsom dismissed all charges against Lt Colonel Jeffrey Chessani on the grounds that General James Mattis, who approved the filing of charges against Chessani, was improperly influenced by an investigator probing the incident; the ruling was without prejudice. The change in U. S. strategy in late 2006 brought quick results to the Hadithah Triad. The U. S. Marines and their Iraqi and coalition allies had driven out insurgents by the summer of 2007.
Hadithah was much more secure and had recovered some of its prosperity by the summer of 2008. The progress was evident when an American Congressional Delegation visited the town in August and found full shops and friendly people. Wit
2017 Western Iraq campaign
The Western Iraq campaign was the final major military operation of the Iraqi Civil War, in the western province of Anbar, on the border with Syria, with the goal of expelling ISIL forces from its last strongholds in Iraq. The offensive followed the Hawija offensive by the Iraqi Government, was concurrent with several major offensives in Syria: the Syrian Democratic Forces' Deir ez-Zor offensive, the Syrian Government's Battle of Deir ez-Zor and Eastern Syria campaign on the opposite side of the Al-Qa'im border crossing. Al-Qa'im was known as a hotbed of jihadist insurgency, after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, with coalition forces carrying out repeated operations against Al-Qaeda jihadists; the strategic and porous border started becoming a route for foreign fighters entering Iraq from Syria, accused by Iraqi Government of ignoring it. The towns of western Anbar were captured by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in 2014. Before the 2017 offensive, Iraqi forces had dislodged the group from key cities of Anbar including Ramadi and Fallujah but the areas near border with Syria including Anah, Rawa, Al-Qaim and the vast rural areas across the province remained under militant control.
An Iraqi operation was launched towards west Anbar in January 2017, but was suspended after recapture of towns of Sagra and Zawiya because of preparations for retaking the western bank of Mosul. In September 2017, the Iraqi Army launched an offensive in the western Anbar Province, recapturing the towns of Akashat on 16 September and Anah on 21 September. After recapturing Hawija on 5 October Iraqi Army was expected to fight ISIL in Anbar. Instead, it paused its military actions and started advancing on Kirkuk. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced an offensive to recapture the western border region of al-Qaim and Rawa on 26 October, he stated, "The heroic legions are advancing into the last den of terrorism in Iraq to liberate al-Qaim and the surrounding villages and hamlets." Iraqi forces including the troops, Sunni tribesmen and Shia militias, participated in the assault. Lieutenant-General Abdul Amir Yarallah announced that they had cleared Umm al-Waz village, 55 kilometres south-east of al-Qa'im, the H-2 Air Base, along with the nearby Husseiniyat area, 120 kilometres south of al-Qaim.
According to the United Nations, around 50,000 people were still in Rawa. Meanwhile, Walid al-Dulaimi, an Iraqi army colonel, told Anadolu Agency that they had captured Rawa intersection and the Jabbab district, about 2 kilometres west of Rawa. Iraqi Army's War Media Cell announced on 27 October that the Popular Mobilisation Units had secured 43 kilometres of the Akashat-al-Qaim road and an area of 301 km² (south of al-Qa'im, it added that PMU captured al-Qakm cement plant, al-Qaom Quarries, al-Qaim station and the water station. Iraqi Army meanwhile captured villages of Awani, northern Jabab and al-Zalla on southern bank of Euphrates. Army Major-General Qasim al-Muhammadi told Anadolu Agency on the same day that 25 militants were killed in a clash between Iraqi Army and ISIL near T1 area, 40 kilometres of al-Qa'im, he added that a large number of militants retreated to center of al-Qaim district. Ahmed al-Dulaimi, an Anbar police captain, stated that five militants and two tribal fighters were killed in the same area a day earlier.
The Joint Operations Command stated on 28 October that pro-Iraqi forces had taken control of large areas to east of al-Qaim, after routing the militants from their hideouts. It stated that the Iraqi troops had captured many villages, a bridge on the Euphrates, the al-Qaim railway station, a military airbase, the Akkas gas field; the JOC added that so far, 75 militants had been killed, while nine SVBIEDs, 10 militant vehicles, four bomb-making sites had been destroyed, while 378 roadside bombs were defused or detonated. The JOC reported that 33 villages had been recaptured from ISIL, within 2 days of the offensive; the Defence Ministry stated on 29 October that Iraqi aeroplanes had dropped thousands of leaflets in ISIL-held areas of Anbar, urging militants to surrender. An Iraqi security source stated on the same day that ISIL fighters had fled towards Al-Bukamal in Syria, after many leaders fled and were killed in airstrikes. Meanwhile, Qatari al-Samarmad, a PMU commander, stated that Ra'ed al-Atouri, the ISIL military official of al-Qa'im, six of his companions had been killed by Iraqi warplanes.
By 31 October, Iraqi forces had reached the edge of al-Qaim. The JOC announced that Iraqi forces, backed by United States' aerial strikes and Sunni tribal fighters, had captured the village of al-Obeidi, adding that though ISIL resisted the advance of the troops, the majority retreated to centre of al-Qaim. Yarallah stated that they had captured a cement plant and a phosphate processing facility, he added that they took control of a nearby residential complex, nine villages around Obeidi as well as large areas of Akkas gas field. Army Brigadier-General Numaan Abdul-Zobai said that they captured villages of Rafedah and Al-Kasim to west of al-Qaim. Minister of Oil Jabar al-Luaibi stated on 2 November that Iraq forces had captured the Akkas gas field. Major-General Numaan Abd al-Zawbaei, commander of the army's 7th Division, said on the same day that regular troops backed by the PMU had captured Al-Saada area, the nearby villages of Jereejib and Qunaitera, west of Al-Qaim, killing several militants and destroying a number of booby-trapped vehicles.
On 3 November, the Iraqi Army captured the Abu Kamal-Al-Qa'im border crossing. The JOC announced; the PMU captured the town's train station, as well as the al-Karabilah neighbourhood during the da
Granary
A granary is a storehouse or room in a barn for threshed grain or animal feed. Ancient or primitive granaries are most made out of pottery. Granaries are built above the ground to keep the stored food away from mice and other animals. From ancient times grain has been stored in bulk; the oldest granaries yet found date back to 9500 BC and are located in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A settlements in the Jordan Valley. The first were located in places between other buildings; however beginning around 8500 BC, they were moved inside houses, by 7500 BC storage occurred in special rooms. The first granaries measured 3 x 3 m on the outside and had suspended floors that protected the grain from rodents and insects and provided air circulation; these granaries are followed by those in Mehrgarh in the Indus Valley from 6000 BC. The ancient Egyptians made a practice of preserving grain in years of plenty against years of scarcity; the climate of Egypt being dry, grain could be stored in pits for a long time without discernible loss of quality.
A silo was a pit for storing grain. It is distinct from a granary, an above-ground structure. Simple storage granaries raised up on four or more posts appeared in the Yangshao culture in China and after the onset of intensive agriculture in the Korean peninsula during the Mumun pottery period as well as in the Japanese archipelago during the Final Jōmon/Early Yayoi periods. In the archaeological vernacular of Northeast Asia, these features are lumped with those that may have functioned as residences and together are called'raised floor buildings'. In vernacular architecture of Indonesian archipelago granaries are made of wood and bamboo materials and most of them are built raised up on four or more posts to avoid rodents and insects. Examples of Indonesian granary is Sundanese Minang rangkiang. In Great Britain small granaries were built on mushroom-shaped stumps called staddle stones, they were built of timber frame construction and had slate roofs. Larger ones were similar to linhays, but with the upper floor enclosed.
Access to the first floor was via stone staircase on the outside wall. Towards the close of the 19th century, warehouses specially intended for holding grain began to multiply in Great Britain. There are climatic difficulties in the way of storing grain in Great Britain on a large scale, but these difficulties have been overcome. Modern grain farming operations use manufactured steel granaries to store grain on-site until it can be trucked to major storage facilities in anticipation of shipping; the large mechanized facilities seen in Russia and North America are known as grain elevators. Grain must be kept away from moisture for as long as possible to preserve it in good condition and prevent mold growth. Newly harvested grain brought into a granary tends to contain excess moisture, which encourages mold growth leading to fermentation and heating, both of which are undesirable and affect quality. Fermentation spoils grain and may cause chemical changes that create poisonous mycotoxins. One traditional remedy is to spread the grain in thin layers on a floor, where it is turned to aerate it thoroughly.
Once the grain is sufficiently dry it can be transferred to a granary for storage. A modern variation on this, is to use a grain auger to move grain stored in one granary to another. In modern silos, grain is force-aerated in situ or circulated through external grain drying equipment. Hórreo Raccard Storage silo Corn crib Groote Schuur, the stately South African home was a granary. Rice barn Treppenspeicher Ghorfa Parish granary
Arabian Peninsula
The Arabian peninsula, simplified Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian plate. From a geographical perspective, it is considered a subcontinent of Asia, it is the largest peninsula in the world, at 3,237,500 km2. The peninsula consists of the countries Yemen, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates; the peninsula formed as a result of the rifting of the Red Sea between 56 and 23 million years ago, is bordered by the Red Sea to the west and southwest, the Persian Gulf to the northeast, the Levant to the north and the Indian Ocean to the southeast. The peninsula plays a critical geopolitical role in the Arab world due to its vast reserves of oil and natural gas. Before the modern era, it was divided into four distinct regions: Hejaz, Southern Arabia and Eastern Arabia. Hejaz and Najd make up most of Saudi Arabia. Southern Arabia consists of some parts of Saudi Arabia and Oman. Eastern Arabia consists of the entire coastal strip of the Persian Gulf.
The Arabian Peninsula is located in the continent of Asia and bounded by the Persian Gulf on the northeast, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman on the east, the Arabian Sea on the southeast and south, the Gulf of Aden on the south, the Bab-el-Mandeb strait on the southwest and the Red Sea, located on the southwest and west. The northern portion of the peninsula merges with the Syrian Desert with no clear border line, although the northern boundary of the peninsula is considered to be the northern borders of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait; the most prominent feature of the peninsula is desert, but in the southwest there are mountain ranges, which receive greater rainfall than the rest of the peninsula. Harrat ash Shaam is a large volcanic field that extends from the northwestern Arabia into Jordan and southern Syria; the peninsula's constituent countries are Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates on the east, Oman on the southeast, Yemen on the south and Saudi Arabia at the center. The island nation of Bahrain lies off the east coast of the peninsula.
Six countries form the Gulf Cooperation Council. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia covers the greater part of the peninsula; the majority of the population of the peninsula live in Yemen. The peninsula contains the world's largest reserves of oil. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are economically the wealthiest in the region. Qatar, a small peninsula in the Persian Gulf on the larger peninsula, is home of the Arabic-language television station Al Jazeera and its English-language subsidiary Al Jazeera English. Kuwait, on the border with Iraq, is an important country strategically, forming one of the main staging grounds for coalition forces mounting the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Though lightly populated, political Arabia is noted for a high population growth rate – as the result of both strong inflows of migrant labor as well as sustained high birth rates; the population tends to be young and skewed gender ratio dominated by males. In many states, the number of South Asians exceeds that of the local citizenry.
The four smallest states, which have their entire coastlines on the Persian Gulf, exhibit the world's most extreme population growth tripling every 20 years. In 2014, the estimated population of the Arabian Peninsula was 77,983,936; the Arabian Peninsula is known for having one of the most uneven adult sex ratios in the world with females in some regions constituting only a quarter of vicenarians and tricenarians. Listed here are the human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups in Arabia Haplogroup J is the most abundant component in the Arabian peninsula, embracing more than 50% of its Y-chromosomes, its two main subclades, show opposite latitudinal gradients in the Middle East. J1-M267 is more abundant in the southern areas, reaching a frequency around 73% in Yemen, whereas J2-M172 is more common in the Levant. J Accounts for the majority of in Saudi Arabia, it seems to be an Adnani marker. Haplogroup J 54.8% Haplogroup E 17.5% R 11.6% Haplogroup T-M184 5.1% Geologically, this region is more appropriately called the Arabian subcontinent because it lies on a tectonic plate of its own, the Arabian Plate, moving incrementally away from the rest of Africa and north, toward Asia, into the Eurasian Plate.
The rocks exposed vary systematically across Arabia, with the oldest rocks exposed in the Arabian-Nubian Shield near the Red Sea, overlain by earlier sediments that become younger towards the Persian Gulf. The best-preserved ophiolite on Earth, the Semail Ophiolite, lies exposed in the mountains of the UAE and northern Oman; the peninsula consists of: A central plateau, the Najd, with fertile valleys and pastures used for the grazing of sheep and other livestock A range of deserts: the Nefud in the north, stony.
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and completely enclosed by land: on the north by Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa and on the east by the Levant. Although the sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, it is identified as a separate body of water. Geological evidence indicates that around 5.9 million years ago, the Mediterranean was cut off from the Atlantic and was or desiccated over a period of some 600,000 years, the Messinian salinity crisis, before being refilled by the Zanclean flood about 5.3 million years ago. It covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km2, representing 0.7 % of the global ocean surface, but its connection to the Atlantic via the Strait of Gibraltar-the narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Spain in Europe from Morocco in Africa- is only 14 km wide. In oceanography, it is sometimes called the Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea or the European Mediterranean Sea to distinguish it from mediterranean seas elsewhere.
The Mediterranean Sea has an average depth of 1,500 m and the deepest recorded point is 5,267 m in the Calypso Deep in the Ionian Sea. The sea is bordered on the north by Europe, the east by Asia, in the south by Africa, it is located between latitudes 30° and 46° N and longitudes 6° W and 36° E. Its west-east length, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Iskenderun, on the southwestern coast of Turkey, is 4,000 km; the sea's average north-south length, from Croatia's southern shore to Libya, is 800 km. The sea was an important route for merchants and travellers of ancient times that allowed for trade and cultural exchange between emergent peoples of the region; the history of the Mediterranean region is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies. The countries surrounding the Mediterranean in clockwise order are Spain, Monaco, Slovenia, Croatia and Herzegovina, Albania, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. In addition, the Gaza Strip and the British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Akrotiri and Dhekelia have coastlines on the sea.
The Ancient Greeks called the Mediterranean ἡ θάλασσα or sometimes ἡ μεγάλη θάλασσα, ἡ ἡμέτερα θάλασσα, or ἡ θάλασσα ἡ καθ'ἡμᾶς. The Romans called it Mare Mare Internum and, starting with the Roman Empire, Mare Nostrum; the term Mare Mediterrāneum appears later: Solinus used it in the 3rd century, but the earliest extant witness to it is in the 6th century, in Isidore of Seville. It means'in the middle of land, inland' in Latin, a compound of medius, -āneus; the Latin word is a calque of Greek μεσόγειος, from μέσος and γήινος, from γῆ. The original meaning may have been'the sea in the middle of the earth', rather than'the sea enclosed by land'; the Carthaginians called it the "Syrian Sea". In ancient Syrian texts, Phoenician epics and in the Hebrew Bible, it was known as the "Great Sea" or as "The Sea". Another name was the "Sea of the Philistines", from the people inhabiting a large portion of its shores near the Israelites. In Modern Hebrew, it is called HaYam HaTikhon'the Middle Sea'. In Modern Arabic, it is known as al-Baḥr al-Mutawassiṭ'the Middle Sea'.
In Islamic and older Arabic literature, it was Baḥr al-Rūm'the Sea of the Romans' or'the Roman Sea'. At first, that name referred to only the Eastern Mediterranean, but it was extended to the whole Mediterranean. Other Arabic names were Baḥr al-šām'the Sea of Syria' and Baḥr al-Maghrib'the Sea of the West'. In Turkish, it is the Akdeniz'the White Sea'; the origin of the name is not clear, as it is not known in earlier Greek, Byzantine or Islamic sources. It may be to contrast with the Black Sea. In Persian, the name was translated as Baḥr-i Safīd, used in Ottoman Turkish, it is the origin of the colloquial Greek phrase Άσπρη Θάλασσα. Johann Knobloch claims that in Classical Antiquity, cultures in the Levant used colours to refer to the cardinal points: black referred to the north, yellow or blue to east, red to south, white to west; this would explain both the Turkish Akdeniz and the Arab nomenclature described above. Several ancient civilizations were located around the Mediterranean shores and were influenced by their proximity to the sea.
It provided routes for trade and war, as well as food for numerous communities throughout the ages. Due to the shared climate and access to the sea, c
Ramadi
Ramadi is a city in central Iraq, about 110 kilometers west of Baghdad and 50 kilometers west of Fallujah. It is the capital of Al Anbar Governorate; the city is the largest city in Al-Anbar. Founded by the Ottoman Empire in 1879, by 2011 it had a population of about 375,000 people, the vast majority of whom are Sunni Arabs from the Dulaim tribal confederation, it lies within the Sunni Triangle of western Iraq. Ramadi occupies a strategic location on the Euphrates and the road west into Syria and Jordan; this has made it a hub for traffic, from which the city gained significant prosperity. Its position has meant that it has been fought over several times, during the two World Wars and again during the Iraq War and Iraqi insurgency, it was damaged during the Iraq War, when it was a major focus for the insurgency against occupying United States forces. Following the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq in 2011, the city was contested by the Iraqi government and the extremist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and fell to ISIL in May 2015.
On 28 December 2015, the Iraqi government declared that it had re-taken Ramadi from ISIL, that government's first major military victory since the loss of Ramadi some seven months earlier. Ramadi's population was reported by the World Food Programme to number 375,000 people in 2011, though the number is to have decreased since given the impact of the Iraq war and insurgency, its population grew during the last half of the 20th century, from 12,020 people in 1956 to 192,556 in 1987. The population is homogeneous, over 90 per cent Sunni Arab; the vast majority of its population come from the Dulaim tribal confederation, which inhabits Syria and Jordan as well as Iraq and has over a thousand individual clans, each headed by a sheik selected by tribal elders. Ramadi is located in a fertile, alluvial plain, within Iraq's Sunni Triangle. A settlement existed in the area when the British explorer Francis Rawdon Chesney passed through in 1836 on a steam-powered boat during an expedition to test the navigability of the Euphrates.
He described it as a "pretty little town" and noted that the black tents of the Bedouin could be seen along the both banks of the river all the way from Ramadi to Falujah. The modern city was founded in 1869 by the Ottoman Wali of Baghdad; the Ottomans sought to control the nomadic Dulaim tribe in the region as part of a programme of settling the Bedouin tribes of Iraq through the use of land grants, in the belief that this would bind them more to the state and make them easier to control. Ramadi was described in 1892 as "the most wide awake town in the whole Euphrates valley, it has large government barracks. The bazaars are large and well filled." Sir John Bagot Glubb was posted there in 1922 "to maintain a rickety floating bridge over the river, carried on boats made of reeds daubed with bitumen", as he put it. By this time the Dulaim were settled, though they had not yet adopted an urbanised lifestyle. Glubb described them as "cultivators along the banks of the Euphrates, watering their wheat and date palms by kerids, or water lifts worked by horses.
Yet they had but settled, still lived in black goat-hair tents." A British military handbook published during World War I noted that "some European travellers have found the inhabitants of Rumadiyah inclined to fanaticism". Ramadi was twice fought over during the Mesopotamian Campaign of World War I, it was held by the forces of the Ottoman Empire, which garrisoned it in March 1917 after losing control of Fallujah to the east. The British Army's Lieutenant General Frederick Stanley Maude sought to drive out the garrison in July 1917 but faced severe difficulties due to exceptional heat during both day and night. A force of around 600 British soldiers plus cavalry units faced 1,000 Turks with six artillery pieces; the attack was a costly failure and a combination of exhaustion, Turkish artillery fire and an unexpected sandstorm forced Maude to call off the attack with heavy losses. More than half of the 566 British casualties were caused by the heat. Maude tried again during a cooler period in September 1917.
This time the attacking force, led by Major General H. T. Brookings, was better organised and the British force was able to cope with the temperatures; the British mounted their attack from a direction that the Turks had not expected and managed to cut off their enemy's line of retreat. Many members of the Turkish garrison were killed or forced to surrender and the British were able to take control of Ramadi. Ramadi was contested again during World War II following the 1941 Iraqi coup d'état; the coup leader, Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, initiated a siege of the British base at RAF Habbaniya near Ramadi. This prompted a British counter-attack to break the siege. An Iraqi brigade occupied Ramadi under the auspices of a training exercise; the British assembled an ad hoc relief force dubbed Habforce which advanced from the British Mandate of Palestine into Iraq. The force succeeded in relieving RAF Habbaniya and Iraqi resistance crumbled as their counter-attacks were defeated, allowing a British column to seize control of Ramadi.
The Ramadi Barrage was built near the city in 1955 to feed water into Lake Habbaniyah to the southeast. The University of Anbar was founded there in 1987 and, together with Ramadi's trade and transport links, gave the city a more cosmopolitan and secular culture than others in the Sunni Triangle. Many high-ranking officials of the ruling Ba'ath Part
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Iraq
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Al Anbar Governorate
