Qaraqosh, also known as Al-Hamdaniya or Bakhdida, is an Assyrian city in Iraq within the Nineveh Governorate, located about 32 km (20 mi) southeast of the city of Mosul and 60 km (37 mi) west of Erbil amid agricultural lands, close to the ruins of the ancient Assyrian cities Nimrud and Nineveh. It is connected to the main city of Mosul by two main roads. The first runs through the towns of Bartella and Karamlesh, which connects to the city of Erbil as well. The second, which was gravel until being paved in the 1990s, is direct to Mosul. All of its citizens fled to Kurdistan Region after the ISIS invasion on August 6, 2014. The town was under control of ISIS until October 19, 2016 when it was liberated as part of the Battle of Mosul after which residents have begun to return. Local Assyrians speak the Qaraqosh dialect of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic. Etymology The present name of the town, Qaraqosh, is first attested in a source from the sixteenth century. It is of Turkish origin, meaning 'Black Bird', and was introduced either by the Ottomans after their conquest of the area at the beginning of the sixteenth century or by the Turkmen rulers of the region in the fifteenth century. The local population, however, when speaking in their Aramaic dialect, still refer to the town by its former name. The name Bakhdida (; Beth Khdeda), is of uncertain origin and when translated from the Syriac language it has two components Beth which means "house", and Khodida which could either mean "Youths" in Aramaic or actually "Baghdadak" a diminutive form of Baghdad, Old Persian meaning "God's gift". Some also believe that Bakhdida comes from the Aramaic Beth Deta, meaning "Land of the Kite". Security As of October 2016, the city is under the control of the Nineveh Plain Protection Units. On November 25, 2017; Nineveh Plain Protection Units (NPU) celebrated the completion of its new military camp in Bakhdida, Nineveh Plain. Education Students from the village were harassed in University of Mosul; many female students were forced to wear an Islamic dress for fear of being attacked. On 2 May 2010 a convoy of buses carrying students from Bakhdida to the University of Mosul was the target of a coordinated attack, which killed and injured more than a hundred. The Iraqi Ministry of Education started the construction of a subsidiary