City Archives: Qamishli

Frank Derouin, U.S. military attache to Syria and Lebanon during a personal tour of Syria driving his own car, arriving (1943) to Turkish border near Qamishli, a prosperous new Syrian town across from the ancient city of Nisibis (Nusaibin) of the Persians and the Romans, and center of the early Syrian Christian monophysit church. The Tauros railroad crossed from Turkey to Syria at Qamishli on its way to the Persian gulf. Part of the old Berlin/Baghdad railroad system. Qamishli is mostly inhabited by Christian and Kurdish refugees from Turkey where Aramaic, Armenian, Kurdish, Turkish and Arabic are spoken.