the fortress village. By December 1767, Zahir's intra-family disputes had subsided for the time being. The rebellions by Zahir's sons were nearly always backed by the governor of Damascus, Uthman Pasha, in a bid to sustain the internal dissent and weaken Zahir. The latter lodged complaints to the imperial government about Uthman Pasha's support for his rebellious sons at least once in 1765. Zahir received the support of the governor of Sidon, Muhammad Pasha al-Azm, an opponent of Uthman Pasha who sought to restore the Azms to office in Damascus. While Sidon's support had no practical military value, the support of his nominal superior provided Zahir with official legitimacy amid his family's insurrections. Alliance with the Metawalis of Jabal Amil Zahir's takeover of the Safed region and the western Galilee removed the barriers between him and the Twelver Shia Muslim clans of Jabal Amil, the predominantly Twelver Shia hill country east of Tyre and Sidon, who were referred to in the sources as the 'Metawalis'. Their territory was wedged between the Shihabs in Mount Lebanon and the Zaydans in northern Palestine. In 1743, Nassar, the chief of the Ali al-Saghirs, the dominant Metawali clan in the Bilad Bishara , assisted government forces in their campaign against Zahir. Around 1750, Nassar's successor, his son Zahir al-Nassar, called for Zahir's backing against the Shihabs, who had earlier killed hundreds of Shia Muslim villagers and sacked the of Jabal Amil in a campaign against the Metawalis. With Zahir's support, the Ali al-Saghirs routed the Shihabs at Marjayoun. Zahir al-Nassar died that year and was succeeded by his brother, Nasif al-Nassar, who soon emerged as the most powerful chief of the Metawalis. Nasif and the other Metawali chiefs backed Zahir's son Uthman during his rebellion against him in 1766, and then his other son Ali in 1767. Amid the conflict, Zahir captured the fortified Metawali-held villages of Bassa and Yaroun on the borders of Zaydani territory. While the contemporary al-Rukayni and the near contemporary Mikha'il Sabbagh agree that the capture of the two villages were the cause of the subsequent battles between Zahir and Nasif, they diverge on the other details. After a series of clashes, the two sides fought at the village of Tarbikha on 6 October 1766. While Sabbagh claims it ended in a victory for Zahir, al-Rukayni held Nasif was the decisive victor. Thereafter, Zahir's Maghrebi mercenaries supposedly employed a ruse