Like Armenians, Assyrians and other Ottoman Greeks, the Greeks of Trebizond province suffered a genocide at the beginning of the 20th century, first by the Young Turks[citation needed] and later by Kemalist forces.[citation needed] In both cases, motivation was the fear of the Turks on losing the territory sooner or later to the local indigenous populations of Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians and the policy of turkification. Death marches through Turkey's mountainous terrain, forced labour in the infamous "Amele Taburu" in Anatolia and slaughter by the irregular bands of Topal Osman resulted in hundred of thousands of Pontic Greeks perishing during the period from 1915 to 1922. The Greek population of the city itself was however not targeted directly, as the local authorities refused to supply mass murderer Topal with weapons, and local Turks forced his band out of the city.