Jisr ash-Shugur
Encyclopedia
Jisr ash-Shugur is a city in Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

 in the Idlib Governorate
Idlib Governorate
Idlib Governorate is one of the fourteen governorates of Syria. It is situated in northwestern Syria, bordering Turkey. Its area depends on sources - estimated vary from 5,933 km² to 6,097 km². The Governorate has a population of 1,464,000...

. Situated at an altitude of 170 metres (557.7 ft) above sea level on the Orontes river, the city was inhabited by 44,322 people as of 2010.

Jisr ash-Shugur has long been an important stopping point on trade routes and is situated on the main route between Latakia
Latakia
Latakia, or Latakiyah , is the principal port city of Syria, as well as the capital of the Latakia Governorate. In addition to serving as a port, the city is a manufacturing center for surrounding agricultural towns and villages...

, 75 kilometres (46.6 mi) to the west and Aleppo
Aleppo
Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...

 104 kilometres (64.6 mi) to the east. Located in the rich alluvial plain of the Ghab valley on the eastern side of the An-Nusayriyah Mountains (also known as the Jebel Ansariye), the area has been continuously inhabited for over 10,000 years. The ancient city of Qarqar is thought to have been situated some 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) south of the modern town, which was established in Hellenistic times as the city of Seleucia ad Belum
Seleucia ad Belum
Seleucia ad Belum – also transliterated as Seleuceia, Seleukeia, or Seleukheia, and later Seleucopolis or Seleukobelos – was an ancient city on the Orontes river Apamene, Syria; the site is located some kilometres west of the city of Apamea , in modern Syria.The city is of Hellenistic...

. The Romans
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 called it Niaccuba and built a stone bridge there across the Orontes. Little remains of the ancient city other than portions of the much-repaired Roman bridge
Roman bridge
Roman bridges, built by ancient Romans, were the first large and lasting bridges built. Roman bridges were built with stone and had the arch as its basic structure....

, which is now incorporated into a 15th–century Mameluke
Mameluke
Mameluke was an American Thoroughbred race horse. Bred and raced by Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, he was out of the mare, Schwester, and was sired by the 1936 Epsom Derby winner, Mahmoud who became the Leading sire in North America in 1946 and the Leading broodmare sire in North America in...

 construction that still serves as one of the city's two bridges over the river. The bridge's V-shaped design was intended to enable it to withstand the force of the current. Although Jisr ash-Shugur is mostly of modern construction, a number of old Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

-era buildings still survive including a caravanserai
Caravanserai
A caravanserai, or khan, also known as caravansary, caravansera, or caravansara in English was a roadside inn where travelers could rest and recover from the day's journey...

 built in the centre of the old town between 1660-75 and restored in 1826-27.

The city has been described as conservative and predominately Sunni Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 with a history of unrest against the government of the ruling secular Arab nationalist
Arab nationalism
Arab nationalism is a nationalist ideology celebrating the glories of Arab civilization, the language and literature of the Arabs, calling for rejuvenation and political union in the Arab world...

 Baath party. It was the scene of a mass killing by Syrian security forces in 1980
Jisr al-Shughour massacre (1980)
The Jisr al-Shughour massacre of 1980 occurred in Syria on 9 March 1980, when helicopter borne Syrian troops were sent into Jisr ash-Shugur, a town between Aleppo and Latakia, to quell demonstrators, who had recently ransacked barracks and party offices in town...

 that prefigured the later and more notorious Hama massacre
Hama massacre
The Hama massacre occurred in February 1982, when the Syrian army, under the orders of the president of Syria Hafez al-Assad, conducted a scorched earth policy against the town of Hama in order to quell a revolt by the Sunni Muslim community against the regime of al-Assad...

. On 9 March 1980, against a background of anti-government protests across Syria, inhabitants of Jisr ash-Shugur marched on the local Ba'ath Party headquarters and set it on fire. The police were unable to restore order and fled. Some demonstrators seized weapons and ammunition from a nearby army barracks. Later that day, units of the Syrian Army
Syrian Army
The Syrian Army, officially called the Syrian Arab Army, is the land force branch of the Syrian Armed Forces. It is the dominant military service of the four uniformed services, controlling the senior most posts in the armed forces, and has the greatest manpower, approximately 80 percent of the...

 Special Forces were helicoptered in from Aleppo to regain control, which they did after pounding the town with rockets and mortars, destroying homes and shops and killing and wounding dozens of people. At least two hundred people were arrested. The following day a military tribunal ordered the execution of more than a hundred of the detainees. In all, about 150–200 people were said to have been killed.

2011 uprising

Violence broke out again in Jisr ash-Shugur on 6 June 2011, three months into the 2011 Syrian uprising
2011 Syrian uprising
The 2011 Syrian uprising is an ongoing internal conflict occurring in Syria. Protests started on 26 January 2011, and escalated into an uprising by 15 March 2011...

. According to the state-controlled Syrian media, "armed gangs" attacked local security forces, killed 120 people and seized control of the city. Local people denied the government's version of events, saying that the casualties were members of the security forces who had been killed by their own side for defecting to the opposition. The city was reported to have been largely abandoned by its inhabitants, many of whom fled to neighbouring Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, as Syrian Army units massed outside to retake it.
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