Abdi’aširta, Aziru's father, was a muscular, bronze-skinned, black-haired Amorite. He and eight of his men were surreptitiously following the camel caravan that had recently left Baalbek. They were recognized as dye traders by his point men, and he knew they carried a prize worth stealing. The dye traders hired the camels to enable them to skirt the Qadesh plains quickly. It was a lawless region at the edge of both Egyptian and Mitanni reach. Now four powers were tugging at Qadesh. Besides the old love and hate relationship between Mitanni and Egyptian might, the Hittites pushed down from the north, and the Amorites agitated a local struggle from within.