"العراق والخليج الفارسي" [ظ‎‎٣‎٥‎٥] (٨٦٢/٧١٣)

PORTS AND INLAND TOWNS
554
Rail: Tikrit station, 2 miles west of the town, is on the Baghdad-Mosul
standard-gauge line (Rly. 4).
Road: Unmetalled road [5] on the right bank north to Mosul. An un
metalled road north up the left bank to Fat-ha and Kirkuk. Unmetalled
road north-east across the steppe to Ain Nukhaila pass in the Jabal Hamrin.
Unmetalled road on the right bank south to Baghdad. Desert routes across
the Jazira south-west by a chain of wells to Hit and to Haditha and west
with fewer wells to Ana.
Air: Landing-ground near the railway station.
Zakho. 37 0 08' N., 42 0 40' E.; alt. c. 1,450 feet. Pop. 4,000. Qadha cap.,
Mosul Liwa. Rainfall station (P. and T.).
This small frontier town 6 miles from the Turkish border is built on a
rocky island in the Khabur river at the northern foot of the Jabal Bakhair
(photo. 38). The inhabitants consist of Kurds, Chaldeans, and Jews. It
is connected by modern bridges with both banks (p. 575). There is
another stone bridge 2 miles upstream. The town has an old Kurdish
castle, a police station, and a post office with direct telegraphic communica
tion with Turkey through Dernakh.
The town has good supplies of grain and sheep from the Zakho plain.
Good and abundant water is obtained from the Khabur.
Communications
Water: Rafts travel down the Khabur to the Tigris.
Land: Partly metalled road [n] leads south over the Geli Spi pass in
the Jabal Bakhair to Simel and Mosul. An unmetalled route west down the
left bank of the Khabur to Pesh Khabur.
Air: Landing-ground on the left bank south-west of the town.
Zubair. 30° 23' N., 47 0 43' E.; alt. c. 30 feet. Pop. 6,000.
Zubair is an oasis town, desert market, and holy city on the fringe of the
Southern Desert, 11 miles south-w r est of Basra and 2 miles north-west of
the R.A.F. establishments at Shuaiba. There are numerous wells of varying
salinity in the tamarisk groves around the town. The inhabitants are
Sunnis, mostly of the Wahhabi sect, and many are merchants from Saudi
Arabia.
Zubair adjoins the site of Omayyad and Abbasid Basra and is named
after a companion of Mohammed slain in the Battle of the Camel (p. 240)
and buried wdthin the present settlement. His tomb remained a place of
pilgrimage after the decay of old Basra, and the town was a focal point in
the tribal wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, sometimes
controlled by the Muntafiq, sometimes by the Mamluk Pashas (p. 259), one
of whom, Buyuk Sulaiman, built its walls; it acted as an outer defence of