War is cruel and always was
In The lands with very little rain"  of the Middle East, many methods were used to control the people. War and forced dominance were and are the most common. 

The aim of the war is to cause damage to the enemy in order to defeat it. To do so, it is necessary to kill, destroy, and if possible, annihilate the opposing forces and their main bastions.
In the 5,000 years of history of the Middle East there were hundreds of wars, tens of thousands of battles, hundreds of millions of dead, innumerable human works destroyed, entire societies eliminated, cultures excluded, mass emigration, ethnic cleansing, slavery, systematic torture.
We shouldn't think that the societies of the Middle East are worse than many other societies in the world. They are only very ancient peoples which therefore had more time to develop state expansionism and imperialism, expressed in their multiple forms.
Nor should we forget that for a long time and on multiple occasions, Middle Eastern societies were  also victims of expansionism and imperialism of external powers. 
In the last centuries these aggressions were very frequent. The powers of Western Europe, Tsarist Russia and later Soviet, the United States, began to intervene in the Middle East in order to seize their resources. 
To achieve this they took advantage of internal dissensions, which already existed, for their own benefit. They promoted sectarian struggles, Christians against Muslims, Muslims against Jews, Shiites against Sunnis. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the first decade of the 21st century (which still are on going) and the war in Syria, unleashed by the United States and its allies with various excuses, and from existing contradictions, triggered forces of hatred and aggression that led to massacres and destruction in those countries. To this we must add the political and military intervention of Russia, related to its own interests in the Middle Eastern region. The external powers injected increasingly deadly armaments, that multiplied death and destruction.
The price is the blood spilled by the people who can no longer work, interact peacefully or live productive and harmonious lives. Only remains death, destruction and emigration.
Anyway, in the Lands of Very little Rain a lot of blood is still being spilled.
From the book "The Lands of Little Rain and Much Blood, by D. Antón, Piriguazú Ediciones.