It was during the latter part of this period that the West Semitic Arameans first appear in the region. They, alongside a host of other peoples, were subjugated by powerful Assyrian kings during the Middle Assyrian Empire. However, a civil war during the reign of Ashur-bel-kala (1074-1056 BCE) greatly weakened the Middle Assyrian Empire, and after his death Arameans, Phoenicians, Neo-Hittites and other peoples in the Levant gradually began to assert their independence and form their own patchwork of states.[citation needed]