Untold story amidst TFSA takeover of Ras al-Ayn/Serekaniye and its countryside is the sacking of the lands of yet another historic Syrian Ezidi population, largely tied to the Milli tribal confederation The 2012 population has been pegged at around 3000, about 1/5 of the Jaziran Ezidi population, scattered around perhaps a dozen agricultural villages in the western, southern, and eastern countrysides with a community of around 50 families living in the main town as well.

Upper Jazira was sewn onto Mandatory Syria by the French in large part for this reason—rapidly transformed from a restless frontier of wandering tribes to a modern breadbasket by a planned “civilisation” project which could occupy the waves of refugees pouring in from Anatolia.

https://twitter.com/mare_indicum/status/1078895381046452224

In ~20 years, radically new infrastructure was laid down to exploit the fertility of the Khabur basin b/w Tur Abdin & Sinjar-Abdulaziz, looking to recall ancient prosperity literally studding the landscape—the myriad tells & other sites visibly laying outlines of empires past.