<P> Large parts of the Euphrates basin were for the first time united under a single ruler during the Akkadian Empire (2335--2154 BC) and Ur III empires, which controlled--either directly or indirectly through vassals--large parts of modern - day Iraq and northeastern Syria . Following their collapse, the Old Assyrian Empire (1975--1750 BCE) and Mari asserted their power over northeast Syria and northern Mesopotamia, while southern Mesopotamia was controlled by city - states like Isin, Kish and Larsa before their territories were absorbed by the newly emerged state of Babylonia under Hammurabi in the early to mid 18th century BCE . </P> <P> In the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE, the Euphrates basin was divided between Kassite Babylon in the south and Mitanni, Assyria and the Hittite Empire in the north, with the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365--1020 BC) eventually eclipsing the Hittites, Mitanni and Kassite Babylonians . Following the end of the Middle Assyrian Empire in the late 11th century BCE, struggles broke out between Babylonia and Assyria over the control of the Iraqi Euphrates basin . The Neo-Assyrian Empire (935--605 BC) eventually emerged victorious out of this conflict and also succeeded in gaining control of the northern Euphrates basin in the first half of the 1st millennium BCE . </P> <P> In the centuries to come, control of the wider Euphrates basin shifted from the Neo-Assyrian Empire (which collapsed between 612 and 599 BC) to the short lived Median Empire (612--546 BC) and equally brief Neo-Babylonian Empire (612--539 BC) in the last years of the 7th century BC, and eventually to the Achaemenid Empire (539--333 BC). The Achaemenid Empire was in turn overrun by Alexander the Great, who defeated the last king Darius III and died in Babylon in 323 BCE . </P> <P> Subsequent to this, the region came under the control of the Seleucid Empire (312--150 BC), Parthian Empire (150--226 AD) (during which several Neo-Assyrian states such as Adiabene came to rule certain regions of the Euphrates), and was fought over by the Roman Empire, its succeeding Byzantine Empire and the Sassanid Empire (226--638 AD), until the Islamic conquest of the mid 7th century AD . </P>

How wide and deep is the euphrates river