sentences:  Although Jisr ash-Shugur is mostly of modern construction, a number of old Ottoman-era buildings still survive including a caravanserai built in the centre of the old town between 1660–75 and restored in 1826–27.The city has been described as conservative and predominately Sunni Muslim with a history of unrest against the government of the ruling secular Arab nationalist Baath party.It was the scene of a mass killing by Syrian security forces in 1980 that prefigured the later and more notorious Hama massacre.