'Abdallah reported that the besieging armies on the East and West sides of Baghdad totaled 19,000 men, and that al-Mu'tazz had very few additional troops to put in the field, since Samarra had been almost completely emptied of soldiers.Fighting during the war lasted for slightly less than a year, with hostile engagements occurring everywhere from the Jazira in the north to the borders of Khuzestan in the southeast.