Battle of Latakia

The Battle of Latakia occurred on the night of October 6, 1973, the first day of the Yom Kippur War. The naval engagement takes it s name from Syria’s chief seaport on the Mediterranean Sea. It was fought between Israel and Syrian missile boats, the first battle between missile-firing ships in naval history.

Syrian had a reasonably strong navy, including several missile boats. These were considered the greatest danger to opposing forces.

The Egyptian and Syrian attack against Israel on October 6, 1973, caught Israel forces by surprise. Israel Navy missile boats (Saar and Reshef-class missile boats) put to sea that very evening to carry out a long-planned attack against units of the Syrian Navy.

Syrian missile boats engaged the attackers, in the first naval battle in history between missile-firing-ships, the Israelis defeated the incoming Syrian fire-and-forget Styx missiles.

The Israelis used jamming systems to confuse the Syrian’s Styx missiles and fired chaff (airborne debris) designed to set the missiles off prematurely (the missiles would hit the chaff instead of the Israel shisp and would blow up while still a safe distance away).

Israelis using their radar-guided Gabriel ship-to-ship missiles to destroy one Osa and two Komar class missile boats and a minesweeper. No Israel vessels were lost. The Syrian Navy then remained in port for the rest of the war.
Battle of Latakia

Who were the Hittites?

Just over a hundred years ago, the name 'Hittite' was almost unknown, apart from one or two references in the Bible. Then, in 1880, an Englishman named Sayce said that a number of rock carvings in modern Turkey ( in central Turkey, to be precise), resembled remains of a long forgotten empire - that of the Hittites

. He was proved to be correct when, in 1906, a large number of clay tablets were unearthed at a place called Boghazkoy (in central Turkey).

The entrance to Hattusa, the symbolic "Lion's gate"

The tablets were mostly in the wedge-shaped signs of Mesopotamia and some could be read without too much difficulty. Others, although looking like straightforward cuneiform, turned out to be in an unknown language.

There were also inscriptions in a kind of picture writing. It took many years before it became possible to decipher the picture writing.

The decipherers were helped when some stone pillars with messages carved on them were found at Kaaratepe. There were two languages; Hittite and Phoenician, the latter is already known.

The columns were to the Hittites what the Rosetta stone was to the Egyptians, it gave the decoders new symbols and their meanings. Some suspect that the Hittite language might have belonged to the same group of languages as the ancestors of most modern European ones (including English!). Now, scholars could make out "WADAR" and "EZZATENI" translate into "WATER" and "EAT".

They also found out that the place where the first tablets were found was in fact called Hattusas at about 1600 B.C. and was the capital of the ancient empire of the Hittites.

Hattusas had a fortified citadel and massive surrounding walls over two miles long. The Hitties claimed that it was one of the cities taken by their legendary kings, Pithanas , and his son, Anittas. A few other conquered towns can be identified - enough to show that at its greatest extent, the whole of Anatolia, Suria, Turkey, much of present day Palestine, Cyprus and northern Iraq were under Hittite control.

The Hittite empire at its greatest extent (Hattusa marked with yellow)

One Hittite king made a surprise attack down the Euphrates in 1595 B.C. and captured Babylon.

Another, Suppiluliumash, was such a great conqueror that the widow of Tutankhamen (the legendary King Tut) wrote him an official letter asking that one of his sons to marry her.

Ordinary Hittites were of medium height, thickset and with bony noses.
They wore felt boots and short belted kilts. Some were bearded and others clean shaven. They grew barley, wheat and also raised sheep & goats.

Like most ancient people at the time, they were Pagans and worshiped numerous Gods, the chief of which was called Teshup (the equivalent of Thor).

One of the secrets of Hittite military success was their use of iron for weapons. Before 1400 B.C., it was known that some red minerals would reduce to metal at temperature not much about those for producing molten copper from blue and green ores. But iron will only flow like copper or lead in much hotter fires, a process which was not to be invented for another 3,000 years.

The Hittite method was repeated beatings and hammerings to drive out the rock impurities. If you were very lucky, and had a little carbon in your iron ore, you'd make a great sword with it. The knowledge of how to do this wasn't available to the rest of the world until the collapse of the empire in about 1200 B.C.

The Hittite and Egyptian Empire, Kadesh (Qadesh) is marked

Just before this happened, Muwatallis, the Hittite king, claimed a great battle victory against the Egyptians in the battle of Kadesh (which was the first ever recorded battle in history, in terms of details of soldiers and formation).

Rameses II, the Egyptian Pharaoh, also claimed to have won the battle, as his numerous monuments bear witness to.

The battle was probably a draw. It was the last great engagement of the Hittite army with its light, spokewheeled and horse-drawn chariots.

Great movements of peoples in the Middle East only a lifetime later, led to the disappearance of the Hittite empire.

Some of the old provincial city states survived for a few more centuries, for example Carchemish, Malatya and Karatepe. It was probably one of these shadowy 'Neo-Hittite' kingdoms that were referred in the Bible.

The Battle of Kadesh was the earliest recorded battle in history where formations were recorded

500 years after the destruction of the capital, Hatussas, the last traces of the Hittites disappeared from the pages of history. Lost for more than a millennium.

Lets talk about the Assassins

Immortalized as heroes in games such as the historical fiction Assassin's Creed series, villanized by the media in cases such as the assassination of US President Abraham Lincoln by the infamous John Wilkes Booth. This post isn't about the actual history of assassinations ; there have been many assassinations in history and to list them all would be a pain! Instead , this post will explore a certain group of people who have designated themselves as assassins. In this post, we'll be talking about the Hashashins ( or الحشاشين‎ as its called in Arabic).

The medieval assassins of the Middle East were called Hashashins [some say it means that they used Hashish, a lot while others speculate it has another meaning, namely claiming it means ''foundation' of the faith'']. The assassins had existed in the Middle East for almost 200 years (since 1090 to the 1260s).

Remains of Masyaf castle.

They mainly lived in the Persian and Syrian mountains, usually in mountain forts and castles.

A famous example (and the one most talked about) is the castle of Masyaf in present-day Syria which served as the base of operations for the Syrian branch of the Assassins.

The assassins were Ismailis (a Shia sect in Islam), as was their founder Hassan Sabbah (c1050-1124AD)

It is not known why he had originally established the Order of the Assassins, but most historians agree it was originally intended to serve his interests to gain political power in the region (at a time of intense competition with not only neighboring Muslim nations but the incoming Crusaders).

The remains of the fortress of Alamut

After creating the Order in 1082 AD, Sabbah designated the mountain fortress of Alamut (1), in the north-west mountainous region of present-day Iran, as his base of operations and proceeded to laying claim and influence to the nearby towns and villages.

Sabbah himself was thought to have never left his fortress ever again since (hence earning the title Old Man of the Mountain), he had devised the order to be created in an hierarchical format. Below Sabbah, the Grand Headmaster of the Order, were those known as “Greater Propagandists”, followed by the normal "Propagandists", the Rafiqs ("Companions"), and the Lasiqs ("Adherents"). It was the Lasiqs who were trained to become some of the most feared assassins, or as they were called, "Fida’i" (self-sacrificing agent), in the known world.(2)

A portrait of Hasan Sabbah

The Fidai were believed to have been the ones who were on Hashish.They were usually young as well, so as to have stamina and greater physical strength.

Soon, Sabbah had ordered his order of Assassins to assassinate prominent politicians and generals of all types and areas.

For an Assassin to get to their targets, the Assassins had to be patient, cold, and calculating. They were generally intelligent and well read because they were required to possess not only knowledge about their enemy, but his or her culture and their native language.

Masyaf territory (in white)

They were trained by their masters to disguise themselves, sneak in to enemy territory and perform the assassinations instead of simply attacking their target outright.

To say that the Assassins fought for the Muslims in the Crusades is not a correct way of defining it.Rather, the Assassins were mercenaries, they assassinated generals and politicians on either side of the Crusaders or the Saracens whenever given a contract to do so.

This ideology, somewhat new to the time, led to the Order of the Hashishins to be labeled a terrorist organization (one of the earliest ever). Indeed, here is a history of the turbulent years lead by Hassan:

1. 1092: The famous Seljuq vizier Nizam al-Mulk was murdered by an Assassin in Baghdad. He becomes their first victim.
2. 1094: The Abbasid Caliph Al-Muqtadi dies, and Hassan does not recognize the new caliph, al-Mustazhir. He and his followers transferred their allegiance to his brother Nizar. The followers of Hassan soon even came at odds with the caliph in Baghdad too.
3. 1113: Following the death of Aleppo's ruler, Ridwan, the Assassins are driven out of the city by the troops of Ibn al-Khashab.
4. 1110's: The Assassins in Syria change their strategy, and start undercover work and build cells in all cities around the region.
5. 1123: Ibn al-Khashab is killed by an Assassin.
6. 1124: Hassan dies in Alamut but the organization still lives. — The leading qadi (Judge) Abu Saad al-Harawi is killed by an Assassin.

But it does not stop there:

1126 November 26: Emir Porsuki of Aleppo and Mosul is killed by an Assassin .

12th century: The Assassins extend their activities into Syria, where they could get much support from the local Shi'i minority as the Seljuq sultanate had captured this territory.

This was how an assassination happens. You STAB!

The Assassins capture a group of castles in the Nusayriyya Mountains (modern Syria). The most important of these castles was the Masyaf, from which the "The Old Man of Mountain", Rashideddin Sinan ruled practically independent from the main leaders of the Assassins.

1173: The Assassins of Syria enter negotiations with Amalric I, King of Jerusalem, with the aim of converting to Christianity.
But as the Assassins by now were numerous and often worked as peasants, they paid high taxes to local Christian landlords, that Christian peasants were exempted from. Their conversion was opposed by the landlords, and this year the Assassin negotiators were murdered by Christian knights. After this, there was no more talk of conversion.

1175: Rashideddin's men make two attempts on the life of Saladin, the leader of the Ayyubids. The second time, the Assassin came so close that wounds were inflicted upon Saladin.

1192: Conrad of Montferrat, King of Jerusalem, is stabbed to death by Assassins before his coronation.

1256: Alamut fortress falls to the Mongols under the leadership of Hülegü. Before this happened, several other fortresses had been captured, and finally Alamut was weak and with little support.

1257: The Mongol warlord Hülegü attacks and destroys the fortress at Alamut. The Assassin library is fully razed, hence destroying a crucial source of information about the Assassins.

Around 1265: The Assassin strongholds in Syria fall to the Mamluk sultan Baybars.

Ultimately, the Order of the Assassins was finally crushed and destroyed during the horrific Mongol Invasion of Khwarizm.

They were specifically targeted by the Mongols after a failed assassination attempt on the Möngke Khan, where Mongol records say hundreds of assassins had attacked his palace.

A portrait of Möngke Khan

Because of that act, the Order of the Assassins was wiped out in the following months by 1256 AD.
(Indeed, decrees existed that "called for the eradication of the Ismailis" by Shams ad Din, the chief judge of Qasvin).

Alamut was captured in December, 1256 and the last grandmaster of the Assassins,  Grand Master Imam Rukn al-Din Khurshah, was executed.

The Syrian branch continued to operate but under Mamluk supervision.

But for all it matters, the Order of the Assassins was finally crushed.


 References and Further Reading:



(1)- Daftary, Farhad. The Ismailis: their history and doctrines (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990),

(2) - Nowell, Charles E. (1947). "The Old Man of the Mountain".
(3) - The Secret Order of Assassins 

A Short History of Aleppo - From Pre-History till the Medieval Era

Aleppo has been in the headlines recently, for a lot of reasons. I shall not delve into that but merely would like to remind people about its rich history and culture. To simply forget about one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world would be an insult to its legacy. This post aims to summarize and give the reader a historical knowledge of Aleppo.

Geography and Pre-Islamic History:

A map showing Aleppo (I don't own the map!)

First of all, it is important that we grasp in our mind the exact location of Aleppo so that we may refer to it , later in this post. Aleppo is located in northern Syria, not too far from the Turkish border (about 45 kilomtetres). Aleppo is also an inland city. 

Now that the geography bit is covered, we shall delve into the actual history. As mentioned before, Aleppo is one of the world's oldest continually inhabited cities. 

This is because archaeologists and historians believe that the site of the present city covers the ancient city of Aleppo which was inhabited since 5000 BC.
Aleppo had a bright early history by being the seat of power (the Capital) of an Akkadian kingdom somewhere around the third Millennium BC. Aleppo's name also first appears in old Babylonian records, where it was called Halab.

And as before, it was the capital of another dynasty (the Yamhad dynasty) during its reign of 1800 to 1600 BC, it was believed to have been one of the powerful states in the Near East at the time. The Yamhad dynasty was destroyed by the invading Hittites in the 16th Century BC. During the later centuries, the Egyptians and Hittites battled in the wars of the Levant and Aleppo found itself at the frontline.

By around the 9th Century BC, Aleppo fell to the Neo-Assyrians, and then to the Neo-Bablyonians and finally laid into the hands of the Achaemenid Persian Empire in the 7th Century BC.


As part of his conquest, Alexander II of Macedon (popularly known as Alexander the Great) conquered Aleppo in 333 BC and a new city called Beroea (Βέροια) was built on its site. Aleppo later became a cultural stronghold of Greek Hellenism for centuries to come and was later part of the Seleucid Empire after Alexander's death where it remained so for almost 300 years until Pompeii the Great conquered the city in 66 BC.

The Romans built bridges, like this , in Aleppo

The Roman era saw an increase in the population of northern Syria that accelerated under the Byzantines well into the 5th century. In the Late Antiquity era,  Beroea was the second largest Syrian city after Antioch,  the capital of Syria and the third largest city in the Roman world.

Archaeological evidence indicates a high population density for settlements between Antioch and Beroea right up to the 6th century CE. This agrarian landscape holds now the remains of large estate houses and churches such as the Church of Saint Simeon Stylites.

Saint Maron of the Maronite Church was probably born in this region; his tomb is located at Brad to the west of Aleppo.

Islamic Conquest, The Crusades and the Medieval Era:

The Sassanian Persian Empire briefly took hold of Aleppo from the Byzantines in the early 7th Century AD. At this time however, the Arabs burst out of the Arabian Peninsula and by 637 AD, Aleppo was conquered by the Arabs under the leadership of Khalid Bin Waleed. The city had been relatively prosperous for the following centuries, even being the capital of an independent emirate in the 900s as well as producing fine poets like Al Farabi. 

However, a resurgent Byzantine Empire would later sack Aleppo in 962 AD and occupy it for more than 10 years ( 974-987 AD). During the Crusades, the city was besieged twice by the Crusaders in 1098 and in 1124, but was not conquered.

Perhaps a date infamously known in History was the 9th of August, 1138 : A massive earthquake struck through Aleppo and had completely ravaged the city and the countryside. Records at the time say 230,000 people had died in the earthquake, effectively making it the third deadliest earthquake of all times. Aleppo was never to recover fully from the earthquake.

During the Third Crusade, the city fell under the control of Saladin (Salah-ad Din, the famous Kurdish warrior) and his Ayyubid dynasty. In January of the year 1260 AD, the Mongols struck Aleppo with an alliance of Armenians and Frankish knights. The city fell in under 6 days and the Muslim and Jewish population were massacred. The Christian population was spared. The Mongols handed control of the territory to the Frankish knights.

The mighty Citadel of Aleppo

However, in September 1260 AD, the Egyptian Mamluks negotiated for a treaty with the Franks of Acre which allowed them to pass through Crusader territory freely, and engaged the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut on September 3, 1260.

The Mamluks won a decisive victory, killing the Mongols' Nestorian Christian general Kitbuqa, and five days later they had re-taken Damascus. Aleppo was recovered by the Muslims within a month, and a Mamluk governor placed to govern the city. Hulagu sent troops to try to recover Aleppo in December. They were able to massacre a large number of Muslims in retaliation for the death of Kitbuqa, but after a fortnight could make no other progress and had to retreat.

The Mamluk governor of the city became insubordinate to the central Mamluk authority in Cairo, and in Autumn 1261 the Mamluk leader Baibars sent an army to reclaim the city.

In October 1271, the Mongols took the city again, attacking with 10,000 horsemen from Anatolia, and defeating the Turcoman troops who were defending Aleppo. The Mamluk garrisons fled to Hama, until Baibars came north again with his main army, and the Mongols retreated.

On 20 October 1280, the Mongols took the city again, pillaging the markets and burning the mosques. The Muslim inhabitants fled for Damascus, where the Mamluk leader Qalawun assembled his forces. When his army advanced, the Mongols again retreated, back across the Euphrates.

A portrait of Tamerlane, a cruel and brutal ruler

Aleppo returned to native control only in 1317. In 1400, the Mongol-Turkic leader Tamerlane captured the city again from the Mamluks.

He massacred many of the inhabitants, ordering the building of a tower of 20,000 skulls outside the city. After the withdrawal of the Mongols, all the Muslim population returned to Aleppo.

On the other hand, Christians who left the city during the Mongol invasion were unable to resettle back in their own quarter in the old town, a fact that led them to establish a new neighborhood in 1420, built outside the city walls, at the northern suburbs of Aleppo.

This new quarter was called al-Jdeydeh ("the new district" in Arabic).


 That concludes this post. I hope you enjoyed it :)

 Sources:

1. Battle of Aleppo - War with the Mamluks
2.English Historical Review

For Further Reading:

1.Constructions of Power and Piety in Medieval Aleppo

2.Muslim Fortresses in the Levant: Between Crusaders and Mongols (Culture and Civilization in the Middle East)
3. The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 4, c.1024-c.1198, Part 2