Niketas of Mistheia attacked Bikisra'il (perhaps the Byzantine Argyrokastron ?), fortifying his own camp and building a ramp so that his siege engines would be on the same level as the defences. Nasr ibn Musharraf tried in two ways to divert him from the siege, using al-Dizbiri, commander of the Fatimid army. First he asked that Bikisra'il be included in the Byzantine-Fatimid peace treaty as a Fatimid possession; but Niketas replied that he would not sanction the treaty till he had captured the fort. Second, al-Dizbiri sent a substantial force to Rafaniyya, but his allies the Banu Kilab did not arrive (having been won over by Nasr ibn Salih of Aleppo). The Fatimid force camped before Abu Qubays, seeking to divert the Byzantines towards the fort of Inab, but Niketas was not distracted from the siege. He refused to allow the ransoming of the commander of Balatunus, who had been captured. Niketas used the envoys of al-Dizbiri in the siege, sending them away at crucial moments. Eventually he agreed terms with the defenders to execute or blind ten of them and send the rest to Romanos III to decide their fate. The fort surrendered with 500 prisoners. The commander of Balatunus was saved. Most of the prisoners were sent off to the emperor. Niketas burned the stone of the ramp he had built and used the resultant lime to repair the walls. He left a garrison and supplies and returned to Antioch