Al-Qubeir (Arabic: ; also referred to as Mazraat al-Qubeir, Qubair, Qubayr, al-Qubayr and al-Kubeir in various news reports) is a settlement in the
Hama Governorate
Hama Governorate ( ar, مُحافظة حماة / ALA-LC: ''Muḥāfaẓat Ḥamā'') is one of the 14 governorates of Syria. It is situated in western-central Syria, bordering Idlib and Aleppo Governorates to the south, Raqqa Governorate to t ...
of
Syria, near the larger village of
Maarzaf
Ma'arzaf ( ar, معرزاف) is a village in northern Syria, administratively part of the Hama Governorate, located northwest of Hama. Nearby localities include Asilah to the west, Mahardah to the north, Khitab to the east and Umm al-Tuyur to t ...
.
Al-Qubeir is described as a
Sunni farming enclave surrounded by
Alawite
The Alawis, Alawites ( ar, علوية ''Alawīyah''), or pejoratively Nusayris ( ar, نصيرية ''Nuṣayrīyah'') are an ethnoreligious group that lives primarily in Levant and follows Alawism, a sect of Islam that originated from Shia Is ...
villages in the central province of Hama.
Al-Qubeir is around 20 kilometers (12 miles) west of the city of
Hama
Hama ( ar, حَمَاة ', ; syr, ܚܡܬ, ħ(ə)mɑθ, lit=fortress; Biblical Hebrew: ''Ḥamāṯ'') is a city on the banks of the Orontes River in west-central Syria. It is located north of Damascus and north of Homs. It is the provinci ...
with around 30 homes and had around 160 inhabitants.
BBC News reports have described al-Qubeir as "just a few single-storey flat-roofed buildings set in the middle of golden corn fields" and as having "fewer than 30 houses".
[
The settlement came to global attention in 2012 as the location of the ]al-Qubeir massacre
The Al-Qubeir massacre ( ar, مجزرة القبير), also known as the Hama massacre, occurred in the small village of Al-Qubeir near Hama, Syria, on 6 June 2012 during the country's ongoing civil conflict. Al-Qubeir is described as a Sunni ...
.
References
Populated places in Mahardah District
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