 It was during this period that the Mongols arrived in the Near East.Their presence further east had already displaced the Khwarazmians, and embassies had been sent by various popes as well as Louis IX to ally or negotiate with them, but they were uninterested in alliances.They sacked Baghdad in 1258, and Aleppo and Damascus in 1260, destroying both the Abbasid caliphate and the last vestiges of the Ayyubid dynasty.