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76-499: An ancient tell has been identified in the city centre 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 , mentioned by the Assyrian king Ashur-bel-kala , who fought the Arameans near the city. The etymology of "Magarisu" is Aramaic (from the root mgrys) and means "pasture land". The city

152-695: A fall in the number of armored divisions reported from the 2010 edition from eight to seven. The independent armored brigade had been replaced by an independent tank regiment. In 2009 and 2010, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the Syrian army comprised 220,000 regular personnel, and the entire armed forces (including the navy, air force and air defenses) had 325,000 regular troops. Additionally, it had about 290,000 reservists. The vast majority of Syrian military equipment

228-550: A gas station. The new city grew from the 1950s to become the administrative centre of the region. The economic boom in the cities of Qamishli and Al-Hasakah was a result of the irrigation projects started in the 1960s, which transformed northeastern Syria into a cotton -growing area. On 23 March 1993, a large fire broke out in the Al-Hasakah Central Prison after prisoners protested the conditions there, leaving 61 inmates dead and 90 others injured. The detainees accused

304-456: A growing Kurdish population." Christians —mostly Assyrians , plus a smaller number of Armenians —also live in the city. In 2004, the city's population was 188,160. Al-Hasakah has an ethnically diverse population of Arabs , Kurds and Assyrians , with a smaller number of Armenians . There are more than forty mosques in the city, as well as at least nine church buildings, serving a large number of Christians of various rites. The Cathedral of

380-531: A rich archaeological heritage of eneolithic (4900–3800 BCE ) tells from the 5th millennium BCE. In Neolithic Greece there is a contrast between the northern Thessalian plain, where rainfall was sufficient to permit densely populated settlements based on dry-farming , and the more dispersed sites in southern Greece, such as the Peloponesus , where early villages sprang up around the smaller arable tracts close to springs, lakes, and marshes. Two models account for

456-628: Is first attested in English in an 1840 report in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society . It is derived from the Arabic تَلّ ( tall ) meaning "mound" or "hillock". Variant spellings include tall , tel , til and tal . The Arabic word has many cognates in other Semitic languages , such as Akkadian tīlu(m) , Ugaritic tl and Hebrew tel ( תל ). The Akkadian form

532-460: Is similar to Sumerian DUL , which can also refer to a pile of any material, such as grain, but it is not known whether the similarity reflects a borrowing from that language or if the Sumerian term itself was a loanword from an earlier Semitic substrate language . If Akkadian tīlu is related to another word in that language, til'u , meaning "woman's breast", there exists a similar term in

608-407: Is the largest football club in the city and plays at Bassel al-Assad Stadium . Syriac Catholic Archeparchy of Al Hasakah-Nisibis Tell (archaeology) In archaeology , a tell (from Arabic : تَلّ , tall , 'mound' or 'small hill') is an artificial topographical feature, a mound consisting of the accumulated and stratified debris of a succession of consecutive settlements at

684-510: Is thought that the earliest examples of tells are in the Jordan Valley , such as at the 10-meter-high mound, dating back to the proto-Neolithic period , at Jericho in the West Bank . More than 5,000 tells have been detected in the area of ancient Israel and Jordan. Of these, Paul Lapp calculated in the 1960s that 98% had yet to be touched by archaeologists. In Syria, tells are abundant in

760-691: The 11th Armored Division has stayed close to its bases in Homs and Hama. The European Council named Major General Wajih Mahmud as commander of the 18th Armored Division in the Official Journal of the European Union on 15 November 2011, sanctioning him for violence committed in Homs . Henry Boyd of the IISS noted that "in Homs , the 18th Armored Division was reinforced by Special Forces units and ... by elements of

836-537: The 1954 Syrian coup d'etat . Further coups followed, each attended by a purge of the officer corps to remove supporters of the losers from the force. 'Discipline in the army broke down across the board as units and their commanders pledged their allegiance to different groups and parties. Indeed, by the late 1950s, the situation had become so bad that Syrian officers regularly disobeyed the orders of superiors who belonged to different ethnic or political groups. The 1963 Syrian coup d'état had as one of its key objectives

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912-546: The 1982 Lebanon War . In 1984, Major General Ali Haidar 's Special Forces were instrumental in blocking an abortive attempt by Rifaat Assad and his Defense Companies to seize the capital. Fayadh's 3rd Armoured Division moved into the capital to join Haidar's forces in the confrontation with the Defense Companies. The 3rd Armoured Division, it seems, had historically been based at al-Qutayfah , near Damascus. Bennett dates

988-852: The Armenian genocide and Assyrian genocide in the Ottoman Empire, many refugees fled to the area after their expulsion and began to develop it in the 1920s. During the French mandate period, Assyrians fleeing ethnic cleansing in Iraq during the Simele massacre , established numerous villages along the Khabur River during the 1930s. French troops were stationed on Citadel Hill at that time. In 1942, there were 7,835 inhabitants in Al-Hasakah, several schools, two churches and

1064-669: The Gulf War , but saw little action. From 1976 to 2005 it was the major pillar of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon . Internally, it played a major part in suppressing the 1979–82 Islamist uprising in Syria , and since early 2011 has been heavily engaged in fighting the Syrian Civil War , the most violent and prolonged war the Syrian Army has taken part in since its establishment in the 1940s. In 1919,

1140-553: The Islamist uprising in Syria in 1979–1982. In March 1980 the 3rd Armored Division and detachments from the Defense Companies arrived in Aleppo. The division was under the command of General Shafiq Fayadh , Hafiz Assad 's first cousin. The troops sealed "off whole quarters and carr[ied] out house-to-house searches, often preceded by tank fire." Hundreds of suspects were rounded up. Only two conventional Army brigades deployed to Hama in 1982,

1216-659: The March 1949 Syrian coup d'état and the August 1949 coup by Colonel Sami al-Hinnawi , and one each in 1951, 1954 , 1963 , 1966 , and 1970 . It has fought four wars with Israel ( 1948 , the Six-Day War in 1967, the Yom Kippur War of 1973, and 1982 Lebanon War ) and one with Jordan ( Black September in Jordan , 1970). An armored division was also deployed to Saudi Arabia in 1990–91 during

1292-723: The Republican Guard and the 4th Armored Division , which are commanded by Bashar al-Assad's brother Maher , are exclusively Alawite. Most of Syria's 300,000 conscripts in 2011 were Sunni. Since 2022, the Minister of Defense and also Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Army and the Armed Forces Lieutenant General Ali Mahmoud Abbas , and Major General Mufid Hassan, Deputy Chief of the General Staff, are some of

1368-880: The Southern Levant , Anatolia and Iran , which had more continuous settlement. Eurasian tells date to the Neolithic , the Chalcolithic and the Bronze and Iron Ages. In the Southern Levant the time of the tells ended with the conquest by Alexander the Great , which ushered in the Hellenistic period with its own, different settlement-building patterns. Many tells across the Near East continue to be occupied and used today. The word tell

1444-605: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated "tens of thousands" soldiers to have defected. By August 2012, 40 Brigadier generals from the Army had defected to the opposition army, out of a total of 1,200 generals. On June 14, 2013, 73 Syrian Army officers and their families, some 202 people in total, sought refuge in Turkey. Amongst their number were seven generals and 20 colonels. In 2013, Agence France Press wrote on 'Syria's diminished security forces.' Up until July 2012,

1520-429: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights – are mainly Sunni without access to vital command and control, Nerguizian said, however the formed Syrian Minister of Defense General Dawoud Rajiha killed in the 18 July 2012 Damascus bombing was a Christian . The army in Syria is the power structure. The armed forces would fight to an end. It would be a bloodbath, literally, because the army would fight to protect not only

1596-660: The Upper Mesopotamia region, scattered along the Euphrates , including Tell al-'Abr , Tell Bazi , Tell Kabir, Tell Mresh, Tell Saghir and Tell Banat . The last is thought to be the site of the oldest war memorial (known as the White Monument ), dating from the 3rd millennium BCE. Tells can be found in Europe in countries such as Spain, Hungary, Romania , Bulgaria, North Macedonia , and Greece . Northeastern Bulgaria has

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1672-628: The 12th in the north, holding the sector from the B'nat Ya'acov bridge to the slopes of Mount Hermon , the 35th in the south from the B'nat Ya'acov bridge to the Yarmuk River border with Jordan, and the 42nd in reserve, earmarked for a theater-level counterattack role. During the Six-Day War Israeli assault of the Golan heights, the Syrian army failed to counterattack the Israelis as the Israelis breached

1748-462: The 1st Armored Division had historically been at al-Kiswah . On 29 September 2004, Jane's Defence Weekly reported that Syria had begun to redeploy elements of one or more Syrian Army special forces regiments based in the coastal hills a few kilometres south of Beirut in Lebanon. A senior Lebanese Army officer told JDW that the 3,000 troops involved would return to Syria. Cordesman wrote that in 2006

1824-476: The 3rd Armored Division's 47th Armored and 21st Mechanized Brigades. Three quarters of the officers and one third of the soldiers in the two brigades were Alawites. Most of the repression was carried out by the Defense Companies and the Special Forces. Meanwhile, the Special Forces were isolating and combing through Hama , killing and capturing suspected government opponents. Syrian forces fought Israel during

1900-713: The 3rd Corps and 17th and 18th Armoured Divisions were established in 1986. The 9th Armoured Division served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War as the Arab Joint Forces Command North reserve and saw little action. In 1994, Haidar expressed objections to the Syrian president's decision to bring Bashar home from his studies in Britain and groom him for the succession after the death of Basil, the eldest Assad son. Soon afterwards, on 3 September 1994, Jane's Defence Weekly reported that then-President Hafez Assad had dismissed at least 16 senior military commanders. Among them

1976-421: The 4th Division under Maher's de facto command." Information from Holliday 2013 suggests that the reserve armored division is the 17th (rather than any other designation), which was responsible for eastern Syria. The division's 93rd Brigade left Idlib to secure Raqqa Governorate in early 2012. Following the reported capture of Raqqa on 3–6 March 2013 , elements of the 17th Division remained under siege to

2052-587: The Army more flexibility and to improve combat efficiency by decentralizing the command structure, absorbing at least some of the lessons learned during the Israeli invasion of the Lebanon in 1982." The organization and military doctrine of the army followed the Soviet model. Richard Bennett's estimate of the 2001 order of battle was: Bennett said the 1st Corps also [had] four independent special forces regiments, including two trained for heliborne commando operations against

2128-520: The Assumption of Mary is the episcopal see of the non-metropolitan Syriac Catholic Archeparchy of Al Hasakah-Nisibis , which depends directly on the Syriac Catholic Patriarch of Antioch . The city of Al-Hasakah is divided into 5 districts, which are Al-Madinah, Al-Aziziyah, Ghuwayran, Al-Nasra and Al-Nashwa. These districts, in turn, are divided into 29 neighborhoods. Al-Jazeera SC Hasakah

2204-468: The Druze population, who have clashed with regime security forces and broken Druze youths out of regime imprisonment to avoid them serving in the army. Increasingly, Assad's Alawite base of support refuse to send their sons to the military due to massive casualty rates among military age men in their community; according to pro oppositions sources a third of 250,000 Alawite men of fighting age have been killed in

2280-601: The French formed the Troupes spéciales du Levant as part of the Army of the Levant in the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon . The former with 8,000 men later grew into both the Syrian and Lebanese armies. This force was used primarily as auxiliaries in support of French troops, and senior officer posts were held by Frenchmen, although Syrians were allowed to hold commissions below

2356-863: The Jordanian Army at al-Ramtha on 21 September, after fierce air attacks on 22 September, the Syrians stopped the attack and began to retreat.The retreat was caused by Jordan's appeal for international aid : "The report said that Hussein “not only appealed for the moral and diplomatic support of the United Kingdom and the United States, coupled with the threat of international action, but had also asked for an air strike by Israel against Syrian troops.” (New York Post) After 1970 further Syrian engagements included: The Syrian armed forces have also been involved in suppressing dissident movements within Syria, for example

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2432-533: The SAA had incurred at least 35,601 fatalities, which when combined with a reasonable ratio of 3 wounded personnel for every soldier killed and approximately 50,000 defections, suggests the SAA presently commands roughly 125,000 personnel. This loss of manpower is exacerbated by Syria's longentrenched problem of having to selectively deploy forces based on their perceived trustworthiness." The International Institute for Strategic Studies in London calculated that by August 2013

2508-815: The Security Box to protect the government's department buildings. In July 2018, the Syrian Army raised the Syrian flag over the Al-Nashwa District that previously was controlled by the YPG and the Asayish security forces in the city of Hasakah . However, in September through November 2019, Asayish forces were still present in al-Nashwa district and able to make arrests. In March 2023 the US conducted retaliation strikes against IRCG forces in

2584-826: The South Semitic classical Ethiopian language of Geʽez , namely təla , "breast". Hebrew tel first appears in the biblical book of Deuteronomy 13:16 (c. 700–500 BCE), describing a heap or small mound and appearing in the books of Joshua and Jeremiah with the same meaning. There are lexically unrelated equivalents for this geophysical concept of a town-mound in other Southwest Asian languages, including kom in Egyptian Arabic , tepe or tappeh ( Turkish / Persian : تپه ), hüyük or höyük (Turkish) and chogha (Persian: چغا , from Turkish çokmak and derivatives çoka etc.). Equivalent words for town-mound often appear in place names, and

2660-630: The Sunni Muslims in the positions of power. Some volunteer brigades, such as Arab Nationalist Guard , are made up of Sunni Syrians and other Sunnis from the Middle Eastern region that adhere to pan-Arab ideals. Before 2011, it was difficult to access reliable information about the SAA because of the Damascus government's sensitivity to potential espionage, particularly by Israel. Richard Bennett wrote in 2001 that "..corps [were] formed in 1985 to give

2736-631: The Syrian Army had "organized two corps that reported to the Land Forces General Staff and the Commander of the Land Force." As of 2010, the army's formations included three army corps (the 1st , 2nd, and 3rd), eight armored divisions (with one independent armored brigade), three mechanized divisions, one armored-special forces division and ten independent airborne-special forces brigades. The army had 11 divisional formations reported in 2011, with

2812-557: The Syrian Civil War, leading to major tensions between the sect and the Syrian government. As of mid-2018, then-Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that the Syrian Arab Army had regained its pre-2011 strength levels, recovering from manpower shortages earlier in the Syrian Civil War. The 3rd Armored Division has deployed elements of three brigades from its bases around Qutayfah to Deraa, Zabadani, and Hama, while

2888-493: The Syrian army. These troops were mostly grouped into three infantry brigades and an armored force of about battalion size," writes Pollack. Between 1949 and 1966, a series of military coups destroyed the stability of the government and any remaining professionalism within the army. In March 1949, the chief of staff, General Husni al-Za'im , installed himself as president. Two more military dictators followed by December 1949. General Adib Shishakli then held power until deposed in

2964-556: The Syrian government became involved in Black September in Jordan when it sent a reinforced armored brigade to aid the Palestine Liberation Organization . Syrian armored units crossed the border and overran Irbid with the help of local Palestinian forces. They encountered several Jordanian Army detachments, but rebuffed them without major difficulty. Two days later, the 5th Infantry Division, heavily reinforced,

3040-476: The Syrian government controlled 25% of the city while Rojava controlled 75%. On August 16, 2016, a small skirmish erupted into the third Battle of al-Hasakah between Asayish alongside YPG and the Syrian government for al-Hasakah. After a week-long battle, Kurdish fighters secured control over 95% of the city. Russia mediated a ceasefire that was put into place on August 23, 2016. Only civilian police officers and interior ministry forces were allowed to return to

3116-412: The Syrian government. The United Nations estimates that violence related to the civil War has displaced up to 120,000 people. On 1 August 2016, the Syrian Democratic Council opened a public office in Al-Hasakah. On 16 August 2016, the Battle of al-Hasakah (2016) started, with the YPG and Asayish capturing most of the remaining areas held by government forces. On 23 August 2016, an agreement between

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3192-598: The Syrian positions. While Syrian units fought hard whenever the Israelis entered their fields of fire, no attempts appear to have been made to exploit Israeli disorientation and confusion during the initial assault. Judging from reports of 1967–1970, including the reporting of the 5th Infantry Division in 1970, the Army appears to have formed its first divisions during this period. The 1st and 3rd Armored Division , and 5th , 7th , and 9th Mechanized Infantry Divisions were all formed prior to 1973. Samuel M. Katz writes that after Hafez al-Assad gained power in November 1970,

3268-399: The Troupes du Levant, they were strengthened and became the main forces of the French apparatus. In 1927, the force was augmented by North African infantry ( tirailleurs ) and cavalry ( spahis ), French Foreign Legion , Troupes de marine infantry and artillery units (both French and Senegalese ). The whole force constituted the Army of the Levant . In August 1945, the Syrian Army

3344-403: The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights , however estimated that less than 1,000 soldiers had deserted the Syrian Army; at the same moment, an FSA battalion commander claimed that the FSA embraced 25,000 army deserters. Also in November 2011, the Free Syrian Army or the website of France 24 estimated the Syrian Army at 200,000 troops. According to General Mustafa al-Sheikh , one of

3420-500: The YPG and the Syrian Army resulted in a ceasefire within the city. Al-Hasakah has since been part of the Jazira Region in the framework of the de facto autonomous Federation of Northern Syria – Rojava . In January 2021, Al-Hasakh, along with Qamishli , came under siege by the Asayish due to disputes with the Damascus government. On 20 January 2022, the al-Sina'a prison came under attack by Islamic State forces who attempted to free ex-IS fighters that were incarcerated inside

3496-432: The action was "a protest against the Syrian government ". In the Battle of Hasakah of summer 2015, the Syrian Government lost control of much of the city to the Islamic State , which was then captured by the Kurdish YPG . Afterwards, some 75% of Hasakah and all of the surrounding countryside were under the administration of the Federation of Northern Syria – Rojava , while only some inner-city areas were controlled by

3572-460: The armed forces, and has the greatest manpower, approximately 80 percent of the combined services. The Syrian Army originated in local military forces formed by the French after World War I, after France obtained a mandate over the region. It officially came into being in 1945, before Syria obtained full independence the following year. Since 1946, it has played a major role in Syria's governance, mounting six military coups: two in 1949, including

3648-481: The army did appear to have some strength. It had around 70,000 personnel, roughly 550 tanks and assault guns, 500 APCs, and nearly 300 artillery pieces. The army had sixteen brigades: twelve infantry, two armored (probably including the 70th Armored), and two mechanized. The Syrian government deployed twelve of the sixteen brigades to the Golan , including both armored brigades and one mechanized brigade. Three 'brigade groups', each comprising four brigades, were deployed:

3724-455: The army expanded to the five divisions listed above, plus ten independent brigades, an artillery rocket brigade (the 69th), and "a reinforced brigade variously termed the 70th Armored Brigade or the Assad Republican Guard. It is today known as the Armored Defense Force; as Assad's praetorian guard it is stationed in and around Damascus and subordinate to the Defense Companies under the command of Assad's brother Rifa'at ." On 18 September 1970,

3800-435: The challenge of relying on units to carry out orders to brutalize the opposition." This has resulted in Bashar's following his father's precedent by attaching regular army units to more reliable forces (Special Forces, Republican Guard, or 4th Armored Division). When Hafez al-Assad directed the suppression of revolts in Hama in 1982, this technique was also used. In 2014, analyst Charles Lister wrote that "As of April 1, 2014,

3876-414: The city after a drone attack which killed a US contractor. Al-Hasakah has a Mediterranean -influenced semi-arid climate ( BSh ) with very hot dry summers and cool wet winters with occasional frosty nights. In 1939, French mandate authorities reported the following population numbers for different ethnic/religious groups in al-Hasakah city centre: In 1992, Al-Hasakah was described as "an Arab city with

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3952-436: The establishment of corps in the Syrian Army to 1985. Writing forty years later, Tom Cooper says "..despite the establishment of.. corps.. most division commanders continued reporting directly to the President . Correspondingly, not only the Chief of Staff of the Syrian Armed Forces but also the Corps HQ exercised only a limited operational control over the Army's divisions." Declassified CIA documents from February 1987 say that

4028-442: The formation of other elite units, many of which receive direct assistance from Russia. In 2011, the majority of the Syrian military were Sunni , but most of the military leadership were Alawites . Alawites made up 12% of the pre-war Syrian population, but 70% of the career soldiers in the Syrian Army. A similar imbalance is seen in the officer corps, where some 80% of the officers are Alawites. The military's most elite divisions,

4104-437: The institution of the army but the regime itself, because the army and the regime is one and the same. — Fawaz Gerges , Lebanese-American author Analyst Joseph Holliday wrote in 2013 that "the Assad government has from the beginning of the conflict been unable to mobilize all of its forces without risking largescale defections. The single greatest liability that the Assad regime has faced in employing its forces has been

4180-432: The limited geographical area they occur in. Tells are formed from a variety of remains, including organic and cultural refuse, collapsed mudbricks and other building materials, water-laid sediments, residues of biogenic and geochemical processes and aeolian sediment . A classic tell looks like a low, truncated cone with sloping sides and a flat, mesa -like top. They can be more than 43 m (141 ft) high. It

4256-422: The local names for tell sites in these regions of Greece. Syrian Army The Syrian Army ( SyA or SA ), officially the Syrian Arab Army ( SyAA or SAA ; Arabic : الجيش العربي السوري , romanized :  al-Jayš al-ʿArabī as-Sūrī ), is the land force branch of the Syrian Armed Forces . It is the dominant military service of the four uniformed services, controlling the most senior posts in

4332-434: The most senior defectors, however, in January 2012 the Syrian forces were estimated at 280,000 including conscripts. By March 15, 2012, many more soldiers, unhappy with crackdowns on pro-democracy protesters, switched sides and a Turkish official said that 60,000 soldiers had deserted the Syrian army, including 20,000 since February 20. It was added that most of the deserters were junior officers and soldiers. By 5 July 2012,

4408-407: The movements of the internal security forces' vehicles. Accordingly, international coalition warplanes bombed the college building. The Hasakah Security Box is a Syrian government enclave within Al-Hasakah, established in August 2016. It contains the prison, immigration office, mayor's palace, police headquarters, and local army command center. Following the second battle for the city in 2015,

4484-424: The north of the city in October 2013. The National Defense Force is under the control and supervision of the Syrian Army and acts in an infantry role, directly fighting against rebels on the ground and running counter-insurgency operations in co-ordination with the army which provides them logistical and artillery support. Struggling with reliability issues and defections, officers of the SAA increasingly prefer

4560-454: The part-time volunteers of the NDF, who they regard as more motivated and loyal, over regular army conscripts to conduct infantry operations and act as support for advancing tanks. An officer in Homs, who asked not to be identified, said the army was increasingly playing a logistical and directive role, while NDF fighters act as combatants on the ground. The NDF continues to play a significant role in military operations across Syria despite

4636-408: The police chief and the Syrian forces of having set the fire. The government blamed five inmates, who were then executed on 24 May 1993. On 26 January 2011, in one of the first events of the 2011 Syrian protests , Hasan Ali Akleh from Al-Hasakah poured gasoline on himself and set himself on fire, in the same way Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi had in Tunis on 17 December 2010. According to eyewitnesses,

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4712-407: The prison. Following the initial attack, clashes spread to the neighbourhoods of al-Zuhour and Ghuwayran. After a 6-day battle, SDF and Coalition forces managed to push back the attack and secure the area. After thwarting their attack on Ghweran prison, they barricaded themselves in the Faculty of Economics building in the Syrian government-controlled areas in the city of Hasaka, targeting civilians and

4788-418: The rank of major. The Syrian officer corps of the Troupes spéciales du Levant mainly consisted former officers of the Ottoman Army and members of Syria's ethnic and religious minorities. By 1927, more than 35% of Syrian soldiers came from the auxiliary troops; they were traditionally Kurdish , Druze or Circassian. After the repression of the Great Syrian Revolt by General Maurice Gamelin , commander of

4864-435: The same site, the refuse of generations of people who built and inhabited them and natural sediment. Tells are most commonly associated with the ancient Near East but are also found elsewhere, such as in Southern and parts of Central Europe , from Greece and Bulgaria to Hungary and Spain , and in North Africa . Within the Near East they are concentrated in less arid regions, including Upper Mesopotamia ,

4940-407: The scale of defections from the Syrian Army, though hard to quantify, was too small to make an impact on the strength of that army, according to Aram Nerguizian from the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies . Strategically important units of the Syrian armed forces are always controlled by Alawite officers; defecting soldiers – by July 2012 "tens of thousands" according to

5016-419: The seizure of the Al-Kiswah military camp, home to the 70th Armored Brigade. In June 1963, Syria took part in the Iraqi military campaign against the Kurds by providing aircraft, armoured vehicles and a force of 6,000 soldiers. Syrian troops crossed the Iraqi border and moved into the Kurdish town of Zakho in pursuit of Barzani 's fighters . There was another 1966 Syrian coup d'etat . However, in 1967

5092-405: The strength of the Syrian army had, compared with 2010, roughly been cut in half, due to defections, desertions and casualties: it now counted 110,000 troops. The Syrian Arab Army suffers from serious recruitment issues as the Syrian Civil War drags on, with military age men across sectarian lines no longer willing to join or serve their conscription terms. These issues are especially notable among

5168-465: The surrounding area, such as Tall Sulaymānī , which is 7.6 kilometers to the north of the city. In Ottoman times , the town was insignificant. Today's settlement was established in April 1922 as a French military post, which soon grew into a town. The establishment of new cities in northern Syria was deemed necessary by the authorities of the French Mandate because after the foundation of Turkey, all major economic centers were allocated to Turkey. After

5244-420: The tell structures of this part of southern Europe, one developed by Paul Halstead and the other by John Chapman. Chapman envisaged the tell as witness to a nucleated communal society , whereas Halstead emphasized the idea that they arose as individual household structures. Thessalian tells often reflect small hamlets with a population of around 40–80. The Toumbas of Macedonia and the Magoulas of Thessaly are

5320-438: The word "tell" itself is one of the most common prefixes for Palestinian toponyms . The Arabic word khirbet , also spelled khirbat ( خربة ), meaning "ruin", also occurs in the names of many archaeological tells, such as Khirbet et-Tell (roughly meaning "heap of ruins"). A tell can form only if natural and man-made material accumulates faster than it is removed by erosion and human-caused truncation , which explains

5396-542: Was Haidar, then commander of the Special Forces, and General Shafiq Fayadh , a cousin of the President who had commanded the "crack" 3rd Armored Division for nearly two decades. The 3rd Armored Division was "deployed around Damascus." JDW commented that "the Special Forces and the 3rd Armored Division, along with the 1st Armored Division are key elements in the security structure that protects Assad's government. Any command changes involving those formations have considerable political significance." Post-uprising reporting indicated

5472-464: Was Soviet manufactured. At October 1, 2011, according to high-ranking defected Syrian Colonel Riad Assaad, 10,000 soldiers, including high-ranking officers, had deserted the Syrian Army. Some of these defectors had formed the Free Syrian Army , engaging in combat with security forces and soldiers in what would turn into the Syrian Civil War . At 16 November 2011, Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of

5548-465: Was also sent into Jordan. Two armored brigades were attached to the division, bringing its tank strength up to over 300 T-55s and its manpower to over 16,000. The division entered Jordan at ar-Ramtha , destroyed a company of Jordanian Centurion tanks there, and continued directly towards Amman . Pollack says it is likely that they intended to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy itself. Despite defeating

5624-489: Was formed mainly from Army of the Levant . As Syria gained independence in 1946, its leaders envisioned a division -sized army. On June 19, 1947, the Syrian Army took the survivors of Pan Am Flight 121 to the Presbyterian mission hospital at Deir ez-Zor . The 1st Brigade was ready by the time of the Syrian war against Israel on May 15, 1948. It consisted of two infantry battalions and one armored battalion. The 2nd Brigade

5700-461: Was organized during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and also included two infantry battalions and one armored battalion. At the time of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War , the army was small, poorly armed, and poorly trained. "Paris had relied primarily on French regulars to keep the peace in Syria and had neglected indigenous forces. Consequently, training was lackadaisical, discipline lax, and staff work almost unheard of. ... there were about 12,000 men in

5776-599: Was the capital of the Aramean state of Bit-Yahiri , which was invaded by Assyrian kings Tukulti-Ninurta II and Ashurnasirpal 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 1,500 years separated the Middle-Assyrian and Byzantine levels. There are numerous other archaeological tells in

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