 |
| Aleppo's souks on fire (Photo from BBC News) |
Raging battles between
Syrian government forces and rebels in the historic districts of central Aleppo
have started a major fire that threatens to destroy the city's medieval markets.
Reports say
hundreds of shops in the souk, one of the best preserved in the Middle East,
have been destroyed.
The labyrinth of narrow
alleys lined with shops was once a major tourist attraction, but has been the
scene of near-daily firefights and shelling in recent weeks, after rebels who
fought their way into the city two months ago pushed toward its center.
Some activists described
the overnight blaze as the worst blow yet to a district that helped make the
heart of Aleppo, Syria's largest city and commercial hub, a UNESCO world
heritage site.
The fire started late
Friday amid heavy government shelling and was still burning Saturday, activists
told The Associated Press. Video posted online showed a pall of smoke hanging
over the city.
One Aleppo-based activist,
Ahmad al-Halabi, estimated the fire destroyed a majority of the shops in the
district.
"It's a disaster. The
fire is threatening to spread to remaining shops," said al-Halabi,
speaking to AP from the stricken area by telephone. He claimed Syrian
authorities cut the water supply off the city, making it more difficult to put
out the fire. He said rebels and civilians were working together to control the
fire with a limited number of fire extinguishers.
"It is a very
difficult and tragic situation there," he said.
The souks -- a maze of
vaulted passageways with shops that sell everything from foods, fabrics,
perfumes, spices and artisan souvenirs -- lie beneath Aleppo's towering citadel
where activists say regime troops and snipers have taken up positions.
Many of the shops have
wooden doors, and clothes, fabrics and leather inside helped spread the fire,
activists said.
"It's a
big loss and a tragedy that the old city has now been affected," Kishore
Rao, director of UNESCO's World Heritage Center, told AP.
In awarding
heritage status, UNESCO said Aleppo's "13th-century citadel, 12th-century
Great Mosque and various 17th-century madrasas,
palaces, caravanserais and hammams
all form part of the city's cohesive, unique urban fabric."
The Guardian
says Aleppo's souks are not the only Syrian cultural treasures to have fallen
victim to the violence following the country's uprising and the crackdown by
the Assad regime.
Some of the
country's most significant sites, including centuries-old fortresses, have been
caught in the crossfire in battles between regime forces and rebels. Others
have been turned into military bases. In Homs, where up to 7,000 are estimated
to have died, historic mosques and souk areas have also been smashed and artifacts
stolen.
In his Aleppo-related
column this morning for the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat, the peerless
Samir Atallah writes of “Cuba, Baghdad and Aleppo.”
In his words, as rephrased from Arabic:
Politics has
many rules that are mostly uncivil and unethical. Rules in politics often prioritize
interests over humans. The latter are at times sacrificed on account of concern
or cowardice.
Cuba was at
one point the Soviet Union’s Number One ally -- a Communist island nation (just
90 miles) off U.S. shores. Moscow, for Cuba’s sake, risked a nuclear war that
could have devastated the world.
A while
later, America started instigating East Europe against the Soviets. As soon as it
felt America’s grip tightening around its neck, Moscow counseled Fidel Castro
to stop backing Communist movements in Latin America.
Though he
fancied painting the whole southern hemisphere red, Castro desisted – not so
much to avoid irritating Moscow but for fear of an American-Soviet deal at his
expense. Who says Russia won’t close its eyes to an American invasion of Cuba
such as America let pass the Soviets’ occupation of Prague?
“Today’s
Iraq” resembles the “1960s Cuba.” Today’s Iraq has ideological ties with Iran.
It also complies with demands from its American ally, who signed away at the
White House the State
of Law Coalition to the epitome of democracy, Nouri al-Maliki.
When Barack Obama’s
busy schedule prevented him from flying to Baghdad, Maliki hopped over to
Washington to receive the freedom keys. And as soon as he returned to Baghdad,
Maliki refocused on reconciling his old crush on Iran with new American
constraints. That’s why when America told him Iran should stop using Iraqi
airspace to fly arms to Syria, he listened to his head, not his heart – or so
it seems.
In the Syria
war, each has a tie-in. We don’t need to know them all today. We could get to
know them after a while or when it is too late. But there is certainly a link-in-the-chain
that makes Hilary Clinton talk more like a political analyst from The Times than
a secretary of state.
There is another
tie-in that makes China stand by Russia against Arab states and their Arab
League, Europe and the Muslim-world-minus-Iran.
In politics,
no rule prevents the monitoring of developments on the ground to gauge the
power balance instead of to take care of victims. That’s why no one sees the
Bombing of Aleppo as akin to the Bombing
of Dresden.
In 1975, Suleiman Franjieh sent
two rusting Hawker Hunter
warplanes to bomb Palestinian refugee camps. The outcry in the Arab world saw
the fighter-bomber jets hangared again.
Each day, loathsome
MIGs take to Syria’s skies to pound cities and turn Aleppo neighborhoods into
piles of rubble and ash.
Meantime,
the world at the United Nations still has to listen to the speeches of Sergei
Lavrov.
