left alive". Although the Türgesh also suffered heavy casualtiesIbn A'tham gives the unverifiable figure of more than 10,000 deadthe Arab losses at the Battle of the Defile led to a rapid deterioration of the Umayyad position in Central Asia. Junayd remained as governor of Khurasan until his death in early 734, but by this time the Muslims had lost control of everything north of the Oxus save for Bukhara, Kish, and the region of al-Saghaniyan. To make up for the losses and shore up the depleted army of Khurasan, the Umayyads were forced to resort to mobilizing some 20,000 Iraqis and sending them to Khurasan, a potentially very dangerous move and a sign of desperation. The Iraqis were notoriously hostile to the Umayyad regime, and had been demilitarized and subject to virtual occupation by Syrian troops since . Junayd was also forced to levy 15,000 native troops to deal with the emergency. The events during and after the battle increased Khurasani disaffection with the Umayyad regime and its representatives, as exemplified by the words of the Azdi standard-bearer to Junayd. Al-Tabari also reports the wordsalbeit possibly a later additionof another Khurasani to Junayd before the battle: "It used to be said that certain of the troops of Khurasan would perish at the hands of a luxury-loving man from the Qays. We now fear that you may be he". According to Blankinship, these passages, as well as poems disparaging Junayd's leadership, are an eloquent testimony to the Khurasanis' frustration at being "forced to fight continuous, unrewarding campaigns for the benefit of vainglorious generals on one of the caliphate's worst fronts, by a central government whose special Syrian army had not hitherto, in the Khurasanis' opinion, faced similar hardships". Blankinship observes that: The subsequent period in Khurasan was turbulent, with revolts and anti-Umayyad agitation among the local Khurasani Arabs, necessitating the introduction of 20,000 Syrian troops into the province, in addition to the Iraqis sent in after the Battle of the Defile. Only in 739–741, after the Türgesh Khaganate collapsed following the murder of its leader Suluk, was the new governor of Khurasan, Nasr ibn Sayyar, able to largely restore the Caliphate's position in Transoxiana, and extend Muslim control again up to Samarkand. In the aftermath of the setbacks at the battles of the Defile, Marj Ardabil, and other similar disasters, the Umayyad government was forced to take urgent measures to reinforce