Afterward, the reinvigorated Umayyads defeated the pro-Zubayrid Qaysi tribes at the Battle of Marj Rahit near Damascus in 684 and took over Egypt by March 685.

[4] An Umayyad army led by Ibn Ziyad was dispatched to the province, but was soundly defeated at the Battle of Khazir in August 686 by the forces of a third rival claimant to the caliphate, the pro-Alid nobleman of Kufa, Mukhtar al-Thaqafi.

[8] In 689, Abd al-Malik marched toward Iraq and by the summer he encamped at Butnan Habib,[11] a boundary station in Jund Qinnasrin (northern Syria),[12] about 30 kilometers (19 mi) east of Aleppo.

[16] The clashes lasted between twenty-four and forty days, during which Mus'ab, still encamped at Bajumayra, dispatched 1,000 cavalrymen under Zahr ibn Qays al-Ju'fi to reinforce his supporters.

[16] Khalid was ultimately allowed to leave for Damascus, while Ibn Misma, wounded, fled south into the Yamama (central Arabia).

[16] At some point during the fighting in al-Jufra, Abd al-Malik had withdrawn from Butnan Habib to counter an attempted coup in Damascus by his kinsman al-Ashdaq.

[18] During much of the summer, Abd al-Malik besieged and attacked the pro-Zubayrid Qaysi leader Zufar ibn al-Harith al-Kilabi, who was holed up in the Euphrates River fortress of Qarqisiya (Circesium), which was strategically located at the crossroads of Syria and Iraq.

[19][18][20] Unable to dislodge him, Abd al-Malik entered negotiations with Zufar and his son Hudhayl and offered them generous financial and political concessions.

[20] They ultimately reconciled with the Umayyads and Hudhayl and the Qays joined the ranks of their army, though Zufar, out of deference to his previous oath of allegiance to Ibn al-Zubayr, refused to personally participate in the anti-Zubayrid campaign.

[21] Afterward, Abd al-Malik marched on Nisibis and gained the surrender of the 2,000-strong Khashabiyya, who joined the Umayyad army after the caliph's amnesty.

[24] At the time of the battle, Mus'ab's most skilled Basran forces were bogged down with Muhallab, who had been reassigned in 689 to the campaign against the Kharijites threatening Basra.

[29] Ibn al-Ashtar counter-proposed that Mus'ab detain and hold the treasonous leaders hostage, releasing them on the condition of victory or executing them if defeated.

[30] The latter had succumbed to his wounds, but before dying he managed to obtain from Abd al-Malik a guarantee of safety for his son Qutayba ibn Muslim, who went on to become an important Umayyad general in the early 8th century.

[31] The head of Mus'ab's cavalry, Attab ibn Warqa, who had secretly defected to Abd al-Malik, subsequently deserted the battle with his horsemen.

[31] Before Ibn al-Ashtar's charge, Abd al-Malik attempted to negotiate with Mus'ab, but the latter refused and "decided to die like a brave man", according to the historian Henri Lammens.

[6][31] He was slain by a certain Za'ida ibn Qudama, a soldier from the Banu Thaqif who declared Mus'ab's death to be vengeance for his fellow tribesman Mukhtar.