Al-Bab means “gate” in Arabic. It is also a name for a relatively small town in Aleppo province. Al-Bab is located 40 kilometers (25 miles) northeast of Aleppo, 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of the Turkish border, and it had a population of 63,069 in 2004 who were mostly Sunni Muslim Arabs.
From the military point of view, this strategically unimportant town has become the location where the Turkish army has suffered heavy casualties. The casualties inflicted upon the Turkish Armed Forces has surpassed those of the Americans and Russians, who had militarily engaged much earlier than Turkey and in a much wider zone.