Ottoman era A large community of
Nawar settled in Saraqib during the
Ottoman era. Along with
Khan Shaykhun and
Ma'arat al-Numan, Saraqib is well known for its elaborate black cotton cloth
embroidery.
Modern Syrian Republic On 26 February 1959, former president
Gamal Abdel Nasser addressed the city's residents in a speech commemorating the union between
Egypt and Syria forming the
United Arab Republic.
Syrian Civil War The town of Saraqib lies at a strategic junction of the Aleppo-Damascus and Aleppo-Latakia roads. Since the outbreak of the
Syrian civil war, from at least April 2011, the town has seen popular opposition to
Bashar al-Assad's government. The
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed that over 200 anti-government activist suspects were arrested when Syrian security forces captured the city on 11 August 2011. Syrian government forces recaptured the city in the
Battle of Saraqib, 24–27 March 2012. On 19 July 2012, at least 25 people were killed in
Syrian Army shelling following a raid by a
Free Syrian Army unit based in the city on a Syrian Army checkpoint. Between 30 October and 1 November 2012,
al-Nusra and
Liwa Dawudthen a sub-unit of
Suqour al-Shamcoordinated an attack on three government checkpoints at entrances to the town. On 23 January 2017,
Ahrar al-Sham captured Saraqib from
Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. On 19 July 2017 the
Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham alliance, which was created after the merger of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and other rebel factions,
recaptured the city from Ahrar al-Sham militants. Saraqib was bombed in September 2017 as part of a government/Russian offensive against rebel territories in
Idlib and
Hama. On 3 February 2018, Russian military pilot
Roman Filipov's
Su-25SM jet was shot down by
Tahrir al-Sham and
Jaysh al-Nasr militants over the
Idlib Governorate, near the town of
Maarrat al-Nu'man ( north of the city of Hama), or the town of Saraqib, according to other sources, with a
shoulder launched surface to air missile. He committed suicide by blowing his
grenade to avoid capture. On 15 October 2018, the
Guardians of Religion Organization which is
al-Qaeda's branch in Syria published a video in Saraqib which showed the group's religious police, the
hisbah, driving around the city with loudspeakers calling on people to adhere to sharia. In July 2019,
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham raided an
ISIL base in the city, arresting several individuals including an individual reportedly associated with ISIL's leader
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, resulting in clashes between ISIL and HTS fighters; during the fighting several
improvised explosive devices were detonated by ISIL. On 6 February 2020, the city fell to the Syrian Army in the
5th Northwestern Syria offensive, but had been retaken weeks later by 26 February during a Syrian opposition and Turkish counter attack. On 1 March 2020, Saraqib was once again under Syrian Army control. On 2 March 2020, the
Russian Reconciliation Centre in Syria announced that Russian
Military Police had been deployed to the city. The city was left depopulated for a number of years thereafter and its infrastructure torn down and looted by the Assad regime. On 28 November, 2024,
Tahrir al-Sham launched
an offensive on the eastern Idlib countryside, capturing Saraqib. ==Sports==