Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The Destruction Of Aleppo



A City of Two Million, Wiped Out -- War Is Boring

Fighting devastates Aleppo, Syria, amid mass displacement

Two years ago it was a thriving city of more than two million people in northern Syria near the Turkish border — and a U.N. world heritage site rich with the architecture of past rulers: Arabs, Romans, Mongols and Ottomans.

Today Aleppo is a war-ravaged ruin, torn down by a year of intensive fighting between the Syrian government and rebel factions. Tank battles, gunfights and bombardment by government artillery, aircraft and rockets have flattened entire neighborhoods and toppled the minaret of an historic mosque, according to a new analysis of commercial satellite imagery by Amnesty International and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Once a safe haven for refugees displaced by fighting elsewhere in Syria, Aleppo itself became a main battleground in Syria’s two-year-old civil war last summer, when rebel forces launched an offensive to capture the city. The rebel offensive petered out—and in June the government counter-attacked following months of brutal bombardment.

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My Comment: One of the oldest cities in the world .... now destroyed .... it will take generations and decades to recover.

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