Description : Tell Rifaat (Arabic: تل رفعت, also spelled Tel Rifaat, Tel Rif'at or Tal Rifaat) is a city in northern Aleppo Governorate, northwestern Syria. Located roughly 40 kilometres (25 mi) north of Aleppo, the town is the administrative center of Nahiya Tell Rifaat. Nearby localities include Azaz to the north, Mare' to the east, Kafr Naya to the south, Deir Jmal and Oqayba to the southwest and Ibbin Samaan to the west. In the 2004 census, Tell Rifaat had a population of 20,514. During the Syrian Civil War, Tell Rifaat was captured by the Free Syrian Army in 2012, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in 2014, and the Islamic Front in 2015. During this time, the town was bombed several times by the Syrian government and its allies. Tell Rifaat was captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces on 16 February 2016 after heavy Russian air strikes which destroyed all three health facilities in the town. Tell Rifaat has been inhabited since the Iron Age when it was known as "Arpad." It became the capital of the north Syrian Aramaean state of Bit Agusi established by Gus of Yahan in the 9th-century BCE. Bit Agusi stretched from the A'zaz area in the north to Hamath in the south. Arpad later became a major vassal city of the Kingdom of Urartu. In 743 BCE, during the Urartu-Assyria War, the Neo-Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser II laid siege to Arpad following the defeat of the Urartuan army of Sarduri II at Samsat. The siege ended with the Assyrian capture of the city in 743 BCE. Afterward Arpad served a provincial capital. The remains of Arpad's walls are still preserved in Tell Rifaat to the height of 8 meters. A settlement existed on the modern-day site of Tell Rifaat during the Seleucid period (301 BCE-63 BCE). A hoard of coins from this period was discovered in 1967. After the nearby Tell Aran, Tell Rifaat is the largest tell in the Jabal Semʻān region.
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