Khabur definition

Anciently the country on both sides of the Euphrates was habitable as far as the river Khabur; at the present time it is all desert from Birejik downward, the camping ground of Bedouin Arabs, the great tribe of Anazeh occupying esh-Sham, the right bank, and the Shammar the left bank, Mesopotamia of the Romans, now called elJezireh or the island.

Here the roads from Damascus, by way of Palmyra, and from Mosul, by way of the Khabur, reach the Euphrates, and here there must always have been a town of considerable commercial and strategic importance.