In the past, people feared the Kurds. In the Middle Ages, people thought of the Kurds as being bandits. In the 18th century, people in Aleppo and Mosul would say that Kurds were as dangerous as rats and locusts. People in Aleppo would also say the Kurds were like the Bedouin (a group of nomadic people). They would say: "Four were born to do mischief: rats, locusts, Bedouin and Kurds". Because of this, and because many Kurds were in military units, Kurds often lived outside the defensive walls of big cities like Aleppo and Damascus. Many of the veterans of Ottoman governors' private armies who became bandits were Arabs and Turkomans as well as Kurds, but Kurds were the group most connected with the problem. People in northern Syria and Mesopotamia thought of themselves as different from the Kurds, who did not have a good reputation. These differences were in existence into the 21st century.