[6] Almost as soon as Damascus submitted, Ja'far ibn Falah entrusted one of his ghilman (household slave soldiers), named Futuh ("Victories"), to carry out the promised jihad against the Byzantines,[7] although the 15th-century compilation Uyun al-Akhbar by the Yemeni Isma'ili historian Idris Imad al-Din also mentions Akhu Muslim as commander.

[8] Futuh assembled a large army of Kutama Berbers, strengthened with levies from Palestine and southern Syria, and moved to besiege Antioch in December 970.

[10] In the meantime, Nikephoros' murderer and successor, John I Tzimiskes, was unable to intervene in person in the east due to the more menacing invasion of the Bulgaria by Sviatoslav I of Kiev.

[4][11] As a result, he sent a small force under a trusted eunuch of his household, the patrikios Nicholas, who according to the contemporary Leo the Deacon was experienced in battle, to relieve the siege.

At that moment, Nicholas launched a surprise attack from all sides and the Fatimid force disintegrated; most of the Muslim army perished, but Aras with Ibn al-Zayyat managed to escape.

Coupled with news of an advance against Damascus of the Qarmatians, a radical Isma'ili group originating from Eastern Arabia and rivals to the Fatimids, Ibn Falah ordered Futuh to raise the siege of Antioch in early July 971.

[13] In the end, Ja'far was unable to resist the Qarmatians and their Arab Bedouin allies; making the fatal choice of confronting them in the desert, he was defeated and killed in battle in August 971.