They formed a patch network of small kingdoms throughout Syria and Upper Mesopotamia, bringing them into direct contact and threat with the civil war-ridden Middle Assyrian state.
Further east the Sutean, Aramean and Arab tribes formed confederations in the Syrian Desert and the Middle Euphrates region.
[5] In attempt to halt Assyrian expansion, a huge coalition of nations united to oppose the Assyrian king, this alliance included not just the Aramean, Phoenician, Neo-Hittite and Sutean kingdoms and tribes of the region, but also the Babylonians, Egyptians, Elamites, Israelites and Arabs (the first mention of Arabs in historical record).
[citation needed] When Adad-nirari III (811-783 BCE) ascended the throne, he resumed vigorous Assyrian expansion in all directions.
Eventually this led to the generic use of the terms Syrian and Syriac to describe both the actual Assyrians of northern Mesopotamia themselves, and the largely Aramean and Phoenician peoples of the Levant.