1.
Syria
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Syrias capital and largest city is Damascus. Religious groups include Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Mandeans, Shiites, Salafis, Sunni Arabs make up the largest religious group in Syria. Its capital Damascus and largest city Aleppo are among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, in the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The post-independence period was tumultuous, and a number of military coups. In 1958, Syria entered a union with Egypt called the United Arab Republic. Syria was under Emergency Law from 1963 to 2011, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, Bashar al-Assad has been president since 2000 and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad, who was in office from 1970 to 2000. Mainstream modern academic opinion strongly favours the argument that the Greek word is related to the cognate Ἀσσυρία, Assyria, in the past, others believed that it was derived from Siryon, the name that the Sidonians gave to Mount Hermon. However, the discovery of the inscription in 2000 seems to support the theory that the term Syria derives from Assyria. The area designated by the word has changed over time, since approximately 10,000 BC, Syria was one of centers of Neolithic culture where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. The following Neolithic period is represented by houses of Mureybet culture. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gyps, finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations. Cities of Hamoukar and Emar played an important role during the late Neolithic, archaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth, perhaps preceded by only those of Mesopotamia. The earliest recorded indigenous civilisation in the region was the Kingdom of Ebla near present-day Idlib, gifts from Pharaohs, found during excavations, confirm Eblas contact with Egypt. One of the earliest written texts from Syria is an agreement between Vizier Ibrium of Ebla and an ambiguous kingdom called Abarsal c.2300 BC. The Northwest Semitic language of the Amorites is the earliest attested of the Canaanite languages, Mari reemerged during this period, and saw renewed prosperity until conquered by Hammurabi of Babylon. Ugarit also arose during this time, circa 1800 BC, close to modern Latakia, Ugaritic was a Semitic language loosely related to the Canaanite languages, and developed the Ugaritic alphabet. The Ugarites kingdom survived until its destruction at the hands of the marauding Indo-European Sea Peoples in the 12th century BC, Yamhad was described in the tablets of Mari as the mightiest state in the near east and as having more vassals than Hammurabi of Babylon. Yamhad imposed its authority over Alalakh, Qatna, the Hurrians states, the army of Yamhad campaigned as far away as Dēr on the border of Elam
2.
Neolithic
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It ended when metal tools became widespread. The Neolithic is a progression of behavioral and cultural characteristics and changes, including the use of wild and domestic crops, the beginning of the Neolithic culture is considered to be in the Levant about 10, 200–8800 BC. It developed directly from the Epipaleolithic Natufian culture in the region, whose people pioneered the use of wild cereals, which then evolved into true farming. The Natufian period was between 12,000 and 10,200 BC, and the so-called proto-Neolithic is now included in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic between 10,200 and 8800 BC. By 10, 200–8800 BC, farming communities arose in the Levant and spread to Asia Minor, North Africa, Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. Early Neolithic farming was limited to a range of plants, both wild and domesticated, which included einkorn wheat, millet and spelt, and the keeping of dogs, sheep. By about 6900–6400 BC, it included domesticated cattle and pigs, the establishment of permanently or seasonally inhabited settlements, not all of these cultural elements characteristic of the Neolithic appeared everywhere in the same order, the earliest farming societies in the Near East did not use pottery. Early Japanese societies and other East Asian cultures used pottery before developing agriculture, unlike the Paleolithic, when more than one human species existed, only one human species reached the Neolithic. The term Neolithic derives from the Greek νέος néos, new and λίθος líthos, stone, the term was invented by Sir John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system. In the Middle East, cultures identified as Neolithic began appearing in the 10th millennium BC, early development occurred in the Levant and from there spread eastwards and westwards. Neolithic cultures are attested in southeastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia by around 8000 BC. The total excavated area is more than 1,200 square yards, the Neolithic 1 period began roughly 10,000 years ago in the Levant. A temple area in southeastern Turkey at Göbekli Tepe dated around 9500 BC may be regarded as the beginning of the period. This site was developed by nomadic tribes, evidenced by the lack of permanent housing in the vicinity. At least seven stone circles, covering 25 acres, contain limestone pillars carved with animals, insects, Stone tools were used by perhaps as many as hundreds of people to create the pillars, which might have supported roofs. Other early PPNA sites dating to around 9500–9000 BC have been found in Jericho, Israel, Gilgal in the Jordan Valley, the start of Neolithic 1 overlaps the Tahunian and Heavy Neolithic periods to some degree. The major advance of Neolithic 1 was true farming, in the proto-Neolithic Natufian cultures, wild cereals were harvested, and perhaps early seed selection and re-seeding occurred. The grain was ground into flour, emmer wheat was domesticated, and animals were herded and domesticated
3.
Halaf culture
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The Halaf culture is a prehistoric period which lasted between about 6100 BCE and 5100 BCE. Small amounts of Halaf material were excavated in 1913 by Leonard Woolley at Carchemish. However, the most important site for the Halaf tradition was the site of Tell Arpachiyah, now located in the suburbs of Mosul, the Halaf period was succeeded by the Halaf-Ubaid Transitional period which comprised the late Halaf, and then by the Ubaid period. However, those views changed with the recent archaeology conducted since 1986 by Peter Akkermans, a formerly unknown transitional culture between the pre-Halaf Neolithics era and Halafs era was uncovered in the Balikh valley, at Tell Sabi Abyad. Currently, eleven occupational layers have been unearthed in Sabi Abyad, levels from 11 to 7 are considered pre-Halaf, from 6 to 4, transitional, and from 3 to 1, early Halaf. No hiatus in occupation is observed except between levels 11 and 10, although no Halaf settlement has been extensively excavated some buildings have been excavated, the tholoi of Tell Arpachiyah, circular domed structures approached through long rectangular anterooms. Only a few of these structures were ever excavated and they were constructed of mud-brick sometimes on stone foundations and may have been for ritual use. Other circular buildings were probably just houses, the best known, most characteristic pottery of Tell Halaf, called Halaf ware, produced by specialist potters, can be painted, sometimes using more than two colors with geometric and animal motifs. Other types of Halaf pottery are known, including unpainted, cooking ware and ware with burnished surfaces, there are many theories about why the distinctive pottery style developed. The theory is that the pottery came about due to regional copying, Halaf pottery has been found in other parts of northern Mesopotamia, such as at Nineveh and Tepe Gawra, Chagar Bazar and at many sites in Anatolia suggesting that it was widely used in the region. In addition, the Halaf communities made female figurines of partially baked clay and stone, the seals are thought to mark the development of concepts of personal property, as similar seals were used for this purpose in later times. The Halaf people used tools made of stone and clay, copper was also known, but was not used for tools. Dryland farming was practiced by the population and this type of farming was based on exploiting natural rainfall without the help of irrigation, in a similar practice to that still practiced today by the Hopi people of Arizona. Emmer wheat, two-rowed barley and flax were grown and they kept cattle, sheep and goats. Halaf culture ended by 5000 BC after entering the so-called Halaf-Ubaid Transitional period, many Halafians settlements were abandoned, and the remaining ones showed Ubaidian characters. The new period is named Northern Ubaid to distinguish it from the proper Ubaid in southern Mesopotamia, the first maintain an invasion and a replacement of the Halafians by the Ubaidians, however, there is no hiatus between the Halaf and northern Ubaid which exclude the invasion theory. The most plausible theory is a Halafian adoption of the Ubaid culture, Akkermans, Peter M. M. G. Schwartz, Glenn M. The Archaeology of Syria, From Complex Hunter-Gatherers to Early Urban Societies, the Ancient Near East, History, Society and Economy
4.
Max von Oppenheim
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Max von Oppenheim was a German lawyer, diplomat, ancient historian, and archaeologist. He was a member of the Oppenheim banking dynasty, abandoning his career in diplomacy, he discovered the site of Tell Halaf in 1899 and conducted excavations there in 1911-13 and again in 1929. Bringing many of his finds to Berlin, he exhibited them in a private museum and this was destroyed by Allied bombing in World War II. However, most of the findings were recently restored and have been exhibited again at Berlin, Oppenheim was a controversial figure before and during World War I because he was considered a spy by the French and British. He did in fact engage in anti-Allied propaganda, aimed at stirring up the Muslim populations of the Allied-controlled territories against their colonial masters, Max Oppenheim was born on 15 July 1860 in Cologne as the son of Albert Oppenheim and Pauline Engels. Albert Oppenheim, a member of the Jewish Oppenheim family of bankers had converted to Catholicism in 1858 to marry Catholic Pauline Engels, in 1867, Max grandfather, Simon, was awarded the title of Freiherr in Austria-Hungary. As the title was valid in Prussia, the family now styled itself von Oppenheim. Max grew up as one of five siblings and from an age he was exposed to art, as his father was an avid collector. Although his father wanted him to work in the house of Sal. According to his memoirs, it was a Christmas gift of The Thousand. Max attended school at Cologne from 1866–79, finishing with the Abitur at the Apostel-Gymnasium and he then followed the wish of his father and began to study law at the University of Strasbourg. However, rather than study, he spent most of time at the Studentenverbindung Palatia and he then transferred to Berlin University but his lack of academic progress caused his father to recall him to Cologne where he finished his 1. Staatsexamen and the exam in 1883. During his time as Referendar he learned Arabic and began to collect Oriental art, at that time, Max also did his military service in the 15th Uhlan Guards regiment. He finished his Referendariat in 1891 by passing the exam as Assessor, in 1892, Oppenheim travelled to Spain, the Maghreb and on to Cairo where he stayed for seven months, studying Arabic and Islam. Unusually, he moved out of a European-style hotel to live in a quarter inhabited by locals, in 1893-94, Oppenheim then travelled from Cairo through the Syrian desert, Mesopotamia to Basra. He passed through areas not visited by any European explorer before him, T. E Lawrence, whom Oppenheim later met at Carchemish in 1912, called Oppenheims work the best book on the area I know. In 1895, Oppenheim visited Constantinople and was received for an audience by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, interested in politics and diplomacy, Oppenheim tried to join the diplomatic corps but the Auswärtiges Amt rejected him due to the Jewish background of his father
5.
Al-Hasakah
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Al-Hasakah, also known as Al-Hasakeh, Al-Kasaka or simply Hasakah, is the capital city of the Al-Hasakah Governorate and it is located in the far northeastern corner of Syria. With a population of 188,160 residents in 2004, Al-Hasakah is among the ten largest cities in Syria and it is the administrative center of a nahiyah consisting of 108 localities with a combined population of 251,570 in 2004. Al-Hasakah has a diverse population of Kurds, Arabs and Assyrians. The Khabur River runs through Al-Hasakah and the rest of the governorate, as a preliminary result of the ongoing Syrian Civil War, Al-Hasakah today is situated in Jazira Canton within the autonomous Federation of Northern Syria – Rojava framework. Al-Hasakah is 80 kilometres south of the Turkish border-city of Qamishli, the Khabur River, a tributary of the Euphrates River flows through the city, downriver from Ras al-Ayn, another border town. The Jaghjagh River flows into the Khabur River at Al-Hasakah, in the city centre, an ancient tell is identified by Dominique Charpin as the location of the city of Qirdahat. Another possibility is that it was the site of the ancient Aramean city of Magarisu, the etymology of Magarisu is Aramaic and means pasture land. The city was the capital of the Aramean state of Bit-Yahiri invaded by Assyrian kings Tukulti-Ninurta II, excavations in the tell discovered materials dating to the Middle-Assyrian, Byzantine and Islamic eras. The last level of occupation ended in the fifteenth century, a period of 1500 years separated between the Middle-Assyrian level and the Byzantine level. In Ottoman times the town was insignificant, todays settlement was established in April 1922 by a French military post. After the expulsion and genocide of the Armenians in the then Ottoman Empire many refugees fled to the city, during the French mandate period, Assyrians, fleeing ethnic cleansings in Iraq during the Simele massacre, established numerous villages along the Khabur River during the 1930s. French troops were stationed on the Citadel Hill during that time, in 1942 there were 7,835 inhabitants in al-Hasakah, several schools, two churches and a gas station. The new city grew from the 1950s to the center of the region. The economic boom of the cities of Qamishli and al-Hasakah was a result of the projects started in the 1960s which transformed Northeast Syria into the main cotton-growing area. The 1970s brought oil production from the oil fields of Qara Shuk, according to eyewitnesses, the action was a protest against the Syrian government. In 2012, Al-Hasakah which has a large Kurdish population, began witnessing protests of several people against the Syrian government. From 2013, the associated with the Kurdish Democratic Union Party. There were also clashes in the city between an Arab insurgent group and the YPG, on 1 August 2016 the Syrian Democratic Council opened a public office in Al-Hasakah
6.
Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age
7.
Hittites
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The Hittites were an Ancient Anatolian people who established an empire centered on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia around 1600 BC. Between the 15th and 13th centuries BC the Hittite Empire came into conflict with the Egyptian Empire, Middle Assyrian Empire, the Assyrians eventually emerged as the dominant power and annexed much of the Hittite empire, while the remainder was sacked by Phrygian newcomers to the region. They referred to their land as Hatti. The conventional name Hittites is due to their identification with the Biblical Hittites in 19th century archaeology. Before the discoveries, the source of information about Hittites had been the Old Testament. Francis William Newman expressed the view, common in the early 19th century. Uriah was a captain in King Davids army and counted among one of his mighty men in 1 Chronicles 11, french scholar Félix Marie Charles Texier discovered the first Hittite ruins in 1834, but did not identify them as Hittite. The first archaeological evidence for the Hittites appeared in tablets found at the Assyrian colony of Kültepe, some names in the tablets were neither Hattic nor Assyrian, but clearly Indo-European. The script on a monument at Boğazköy by a People of Hattusas discovered by William Wright in 1884 was found to match peculiar hieroglyphic scripts from Aleppo, in 1887, excavations at Tell El-Amarna in Egypt uncovered the diplomatic correspondence of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and his son Akhenaton. Shortly after this, Archibald Sayce proposed that Hatti or Khatti in Anatolia was identical with the kingdom of Kheta mentioned in these Egyptian texts, as well as with the biblical Hittites. Others, such as Max Müller, agreed that Khatti was probably Kheta, sayces identification came to be widely accepted over the course of the early 20th century, and the name Hittite has become attached to the civilization uncovered at Boğazköy. He also proved that the ruins at Boğazköy were the remains of the capital of an empire that, at one point, under the direction of the German Archaeological Institute, excavations at Hattusa have been under way since 1907, with interruptions during the world wars. Kültepe was successfully excavated by Professor Tahsin Özgüç from 1948 until his death in 2005, the Hittites used Mesopotamian Cuneiform script. The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, Turkey houses the richest collection of Hittite, the Hittite kingdom was centred on the lands surrounding Hattusa and Neša, known as the land Hatti. For example, the reward for the capture of a slave after he managed to flee beyond the Halys is higher than that for a slave caught before he could reach the river. To the west and south of the core territory lay the region known as Luwiya in the earliest Hittite texts and this terminology was replaced by the names Arzawa and Kizzuwatna with the rise of those kingdoms. Nevertheless, the Hittites continued to refer to the language originated in these areas as Luwian. Prior to the rise of Kizzuwatna, the heart of territory in Cilicia was first referred to by the Hittites as Adaniya
8.
Assyria
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Assyria was a major Mesopotamian East Semitic-speaking kingdom and empire of the ancient Near East and the Levant. Centered on the Tigris in Upper Mesopotamia, the Assyrians came to rule powerful empires at several times. Assyria is named after its capital, the ancient city of Aššur. In the 25th and 24th centuries BC, Assyrian kings were pastoral leaders, Assyria can also refer to the geographic region or heartland where Assyria, its empires and the Assyrian people were centered. The indigenous modern Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrian Christian ethnic minority in northern Iraq, north east Syria, southeast Turkey, in prehistoric times, the region that was to become known as Assyria was home to a Neanderthal culture such as has been found at the Shanidar Cave. The earliest Neolithic sites in Assyria were the Jarmo culture c.7100 BC and Tell Hassuna, during the 3rd millennium BC, a very intimate cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and the Akkadians throughout Mesopotamia, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian, and vice versa, is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a scale, to syntactic, morphological. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium BC as a sprachbund and it is highly likely that the city was named in honour of its patron Assyrian god with the same name. The city of Aššur, together with a number of other Assyrian cities, however it is likely that they were initially Sumerian-dominated administrative centres. In the late 26th century BC, Eannatum of Lagash, then the dominant Sumerian ruler in Mesopotamia, similarly, in c. the early 25th century BC, Lugal-Anne-Mundu the king of the Sumerian state of Adab lists Subartu as paying tribute to him. Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria, little is known, in the Assyrian King List, the earliest king recorded was Tudiya. According to Georges Roux he would have lived in the mid 25th century BC, Tudiya was succeeded on the list by Adamu, the first known reference to the Semitic name Adam and then a further thirteen rulers. The earliest kings, such as Tudiya, who are recorded as kings who lived in tents, were independent semi-nomadic pastoralist rulers and these kings at some point became fully urbanised and founded the city state of Ashur in the mid 21st century BC. During the Akkadian Empire, the Assyrians, like all the Mesopotamian Semites, became subject to the dynasty of the city state of Akkad, the Akkadian Empire founded by Sargon the Great claimed to encompass the surrounding four quarters. Assyrian rulers were subject to Sargon and his successors, and the city of Ashur became an administrative center of the Empire. On those tablets, Assyrian traders in Burushanda implored the help of their ruler, Sargon the Great, the name Hatti itself even appears in later accounts of his grandson, Naram-Sin, campaigning in Anatolia. Assyrian and Akkadian traders spread the use of writing in the form of the Mesopotamian cuneiform script to Asia Minor, the Akkadian Empire was destroyed by economic decline and internal civil war, followed by attacks from barbarian Gutian people in 2154 BC. The rulers of Assyria during the period between c.2154 BC and 2112 BC once again fully independent, as the Gutians are only known to have administered southern Mesopotamia
9.
Syrian Civil War
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The Syrian Civil War is an armed conflict taking place in Syria. Syrian opposition groups formed the Free Syrian Army and seized control of the area surrounding Aleppo, over time, some factions of the Syrian opposition split from their original moderate position to pursue an Islamist vision for Syria, joining groups such as al-Nusra Front and ISIL. In 2015, the Yekîneyên Parastina Gel joined forces with Arab, Assyrian, Armenian, Russia and Hezbollah militarily engaged in support of the Syrian government, while beginning in 2014, a coalition of NATO countries began launching airstrikes against ISIL. International organizations have accused the Syrian government, ISIL, and some groups of severe human rights violations. The conflict has caused a major refugee crisis, over the course of the war a number of peace initiatives have been launched, including the March 2017 Geneva peace talks on Syria led by the United Nations, but fighting continues. Syria became an independent republic in 1946, although democratic rule ended with a coup in March 1949, a popular uprising against military rule in 1954 saw the army transfer power to civilians. From 1958 to 1961, a union with Egypt replaced Syrias parliamentary system with a highly centralized presidential government. The secular Baath Syrian Regional Branch government came to power through a successful coup détat in 1963, for the next several years Syria went through additional coups and changes in leadership. In March 1971, Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite, declared himself President, on 31 January 1973, Hafez al-Assad implemented a new constitution, which led to a national crisis. They labeled Assad the enemy of Allah and called for a jihad against his rule, the government survived a series of armed revolts by Sunni Islamists, mainly members of the Muslim Brotherhood, from 1976 until 1982. Upon Hafez al-Assads death in 2000, his son Bashar al-Assad was elected as President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma, a Sunni Muslim born and educated in Britain, initially inspired hopes for democratic reforms. The Damascus Spring, a period of social and political debate, the Damascus Spring largely ended in August 2001 with the arrest and imprisonment of ten leading activists who had called for democratic elections and a campaign of civil disobedience. In the opinion of his critics, Bashar al-Assad had failed to deliver on promised reforms, Syrian Arabs, together with some 600,000 Palestinian Arabs, make up roughly 74 percent of the population. Syria Muslims are 74 percent Sunnis, and 13 percent Shias,3 percent were Druze, not all of the Sunnis are Arabs. Bashar is married to a Sunni, with whom he has several children and he is affiliated with the sect that his parents belong to, the minority Alawite sect which comprises an estimated 8-12 percent of the total population. Assyrians, an indigenous Eastern Aramaic-speaking Christian Semitic people, numbering approximately 500,000, are mainly in northeast Syria. A larger population lives over the border in northern Iraq, other ethnic groups include Armenians, Circassians, Turkmens, Greeks, Mhallami, Kawliya, Yezidi, Shabaks, and Mandeans. Socioeconomic inequality increased significantly after free market policies were initiated by Hafez al-Assad in his later years, the country also faced particularly high youth unemployment rates
10.
People's Protection Units
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The Peoples Protection Units is a Kurdish militia in Syria and the primary component of Rojavas Syrian Democratic Forces. The YPG is mostly ethnically Kurdish, but it also includes Arabs, Western volunteers, and the Syriac Military Council, the YPG was formed in 2004 as the armed wing of the Kurdish leftist Democratic Union Party. It expanded rapidly in the Syrian Civil War and came to predominate over other armed Kurdish groups. In early 2015, the group won a victory over the Islamic State at the Siege of Kobanî. Since then, the YPG has primarily fought against ISIL, as well as on occasion fighting other Syrian rebel groups. In late 2015, the YPG founded the Syrian Democratic Forces upon the USs urging, as a group to better incorporate Arabs. The SDFs Raqqa offensive was launched in late 2016 to capture the Arab city of Raqqa, a light infantry force, the YPG has limited military equipment and few armored vehicles. They receive substantial air support from the United States and some support from Russia, the Democratic Union Party was founded in 2003 as one of many Kurdish opposition parties in the Syrian parliament. The PYD distinguished itself as the only Kurdish party that supported the Qamishli uprising in 2004. As a result, it was repressed in the years leading up to the Syrian Civil War. In 2016, Turkish government officials claimed that it was the branch of the PKK in Syria. YPG militias were first formed in 2004, after the Syrian government quashed a rebellion in its largest Kurdish-majority city, Qamishli and it did not emerge as a significant force until the Syrian revolt erupted in 2011, but had been organising clandestinely during the interim. Iraq-based PKK fighters, who were either from or had trained in Syrian Kurdistan, the YPG is considered the armed wing of the PYD. Other groups in the YPG include the Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party, in July 2012, the YPG had a standoff with Syrian government forces in the Kurdish city of Kobanî and the surrounding areas. After negotiations, government forces withdrew and the YPG took possession of Kobanî, Amuda, by December 2012, it had expanded to eight brigades, which were formed in Qamişlo, Kobanî, and Ras al-Ayn and in the districts of Afrin, Al-Malikiyah, and Al-Bab. The YPG did not initially take an offensive posture in the Syrian Civil War, aiming mostly to defend Kurdish-majority areas, it avoided engaging Syrian government forces, which still controlled several enclaves in Kurdish territory. The YPG changed this policy when Ras al-Ayn was taken by the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front, at first the YPG conquered the surrounding government-controlled areas, Al-Darbasiyah, Tel Tamer and Al-Malikiyah in order to prevent the FSA from gaining more power in the area. The subsequent Battle of Ras al-Ayn started in earnest when on 19 November 2012, the Al-Nusra Front, the battle ended with a YPG victory in July 2013
11.
Ras al-Ayn
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Ras al-Ayn, also spelled Ras al-Ain, is a city in al-Hasakah Governorate in northeastern Syria, on the border with Turkey. One of the oldest civilizations in Upper Mesopotamia, the area of Ras al-Ayn has been inhabited since at least the Neolithic age, with the 1921 Treaty of Ankara Ras al-Ayn became a divided city when its northern part, todays Ceylanpınar, were ceded to Turkey. With a population of 29,347, it is the third largest city in al-Hasakah Governorate, the city is inhabited predominantly by Arabs and Kurds, with a significant number of Syriacs/Assyrians and a smaller number of Armenians and Chechens. During the Syrian Civil War of the 2010s, it part of Jazira Canton in the de facto autonomous region of Rojava. The first mention of the town is in Akkadian Rēš ina during the reign of the Assyrian king Adad-nirari II, the Arabic name Ras al-Ayn derives from the Akkadian and has the same meaning, head of the spring. Or, idiomatically, Hill of the spring - indicating a prominent mountain close to a well. The ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy names the town Raisena, the town was called in the Roman empire as Ressaina/Resaina. Another name was Theodosiopolis after emperor Theodosius I who enlarged the town in 380, in addition to Ras al-Ayn medieval Arabic Muslim sources refer to the town sometimes as Ain Werda. Nineteenth century English sources refer to the town as Ras Ain or Ain Verdeh or Ras el Ain, the Kurdish name Serê Kaniyê also means head of the spring or head of the Fountain. It means water source areas in Kurdish and this name is probably a modern literal translation of the ancient Semitic name. Ras al-Ayn is located in the Upper Khabur basin in the northern Syrian region of Jazira, the Khabur River, largest tributary of the Euphrates, crosses the border from Turkey near the town of Tell Halaf, just about 4 kilometres to the southwest of the city. While more than 80% of the Upper Khaburs water originates from Turkey, so rather than the overground streams, its the giant karstic springs of the Ras al-Ayn area that is considered the rivers main perennial source. Ras al-Ayn has more than 100 natural springs, the most famous spring is Naba al-Kebreet, a hot spring with a very high mineral content, containing everything from simple calcium to lithium, and even radium. The area of Ras al-Ayn is one of the oldest civilizations in Upper Mesopotamia, later it became known as the ancient Aramean city of Sikkan, the Roman city of Rhesaina, and the Byzantine city of Theodosiopolis. The city fell to the Arabs in 640, was several times destroyed and rebuild and it still remained an important site of the Syriac Orthodox Christians, until Tamerlane sacked the city at the end of the 14th century. During the Armenian Genocide, the Ottomans killed 80.000 Armenians in the infamous Ras al-Ayn camps, divided by the 1921 Treaty of Ankara, it was stripped off its northern neighborhoods, todays Ceylanpınar, Turkey. In the Syrian Civil War, Ras al-Ayn was engulfed by the long Battle of Ras al-Ayn, until in July 2013 the Kurdish YPG forces took over control, today the city with its predominantly Kurdish population is part of Jazira Canton in the de facto autonomous region of Rojava. The area of Ras al-Ayn was inhabited at least since the Neolithic age
12.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
