Kafr Kila

Kafr Kila may refer to:

Kafr Kila, Syria

Kafr Kila (Arabic: كفر كيلا‎, also spelled Kafr Kile) is a town in northwestern Syria, administratively part of the Idlib Governorate, located north of Idlib. Nearby localities include Kafr Takharim to the southwest, Qurqania to the southeast, Barisha to the northeast, Qalb Loze to the north, Harem to the northwest and Isqat and Salqin to the west. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics, Kafr Takharim had a population of 2,037 in the 2004 census. Its inhabitants are predominantly members of the Druze community.

Kafr Kila's inhabitants, like most Druze in the area, work primarily in agriculture and cultivate olives and cumin. The village contains a number of Byzantine ruins. Of these ruins include an ornate basilica, with an entrance topped by a particularly decorated lintel.

During the ongoing Syrian civil war, Kafr Kila's residents provided shelter for internal refugees. although the Idlib region (with the exception of Idlib and small pockets of territory) is largely under opposition control, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) had not entered Kafr Kila or other Druze villages because the villages maintained their neutrality in the conflict and host many displaced families from neighboring towns. However, towards the end of 2013, militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a Salafist-jihadist organization, largely became dominant over the FSA and captured Kafr Kila along with other Druze-majority villages in area. They reportedly demanded that residents "announce their Islam" by converting their prayer houses into mosques and trimming their mustaches.

Syria

Coordinates: 35°N 38°E / 35°N 38°E / 35; 38

Syria (ⁱ/ˈsɪ.rɪə/; Arabic: سوريا‎ or سورية, Sūriyā or Sūrīyah), officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in Western Asia. De jure Syrian territory borders 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, but the government's control now extends to approximately 30–40% of the de jure state area and less than 60% of the population.

A country of fertile plains, high mountains, and deserts, Syria is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups, including Syrian Arabs, Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians, Kurds, Circassians,Mandeans and Turks. Religious groups include Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Mandeans, Shiites, Salafis, and Yazidis. Sunni Arabs make up the largest population group in Syria.

In English, the name "Syria" was formerly synonymous with the Levant (known in Arabic as al-Sham), while the modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization of the 3rd millennium BC. Its capital Damascus is 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.

Syria (disambiguation)

Syria is a country in the Middle East, incorporating north-eastern Levant and Eastern Mesopotamia. Syria, Siria, and Suryani may also refer to:

Geography and history

The Region of Syria refers to wider historical geographic region. In this sense it can refer to:

In the Middle East

Roman Syria

Syria was an early Roman province, annexed to the Roman Republic in 64 BC by Pompey in the Third Mithridatic War following the defeat of Armenian King Tigranes the Great. Following the partition of the Herodian Kingdom into tetrarchies in 6 AD, it was gradually absorbed into Roman provinces, with Roman Syria annexing Iturea and Trachonitis. Later, in 135 AD, in the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt, Syrian province was merged with Judea province, creating the larger province of Syria Palaestina.

Provincia Syria

During the Principate.

Syria Palæstina

Syria Palæstina was established by the merger of Roman Syria and Roman Jud(a)ea, following the defeat of the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 135.

Provincia Syria-Coele

The governor of Syria retained the civil administration of the whole large province undiminished, and held for long alone in all Asia a command of the first rank. It was only in the course of the second century that a diminution of his prerogatives occurred, when Hadrian took one of the four legions from the governor of Syria and handed it over to the governor of Palestine. It was Severus who at length withdrew the first place in the Roman military hierarchy from the Syrian governor. After having subdued the province (which had wished at that time to make Niger emperor, as it had formerly done with its governor Vespasian) amidst resistance from the capital Antioch in particular, he ordained its partition into a northern and a southern half, and gave to the governor of the former, which was called Coele-Syria, two legions, to the governor of the latter, the province of Syro-Phoenicia, one legion.