High spring in Syria's largest city and the final battle has arrived. From his vantage point on a frontline in Aleppo's northeast, Abu Bilal, a rebel commander, had spent the past month staring at a ridge line about a mile away that marked the closest Syrian military position. A large white house, the one building still standing, had been the target for the only tank his men had. It shimmered in the rising heat and, at times, figures seemed to appear briefly in the distant haze. Were they really there?
There was nothing illusory about the Syrian soldiers and tanks that appeared last Thursday, though. Just after dawn, the ridge and the cobalt sky erupted with an intensity that Bilal and his unit had not seen in the two-year fight for Aleppo. After surging to life, then stalling so often, the battle they had been braced for – and possibly a definitive reckoning on who will prevail in Syria's war – was upon the rebels defending the Sheikh Najjar area. The district's factories and mills had long been an engine room of Syria's economy. Now they are crucial to its destiny. "They are trying to encircle the city," said one rebel leader from a room in a pock-marked house. "And this time they think they can do it."
Later that day, the worst fears of the opposition fighters were about to be realised. Just to their north, the Aleppo central prison, seen by both sides as a vital target, had been breached by regime soldiers, fighting with a battalion of Iraqi Shia irregulars. Gaining control of the prison would allow government forces to start to close the gap between the north-east of the city and their stronghold in the north-west. Such a move would further compromise the rebels' already vulnerable supply lines and make their campaign to hold Aleppo close to impossible. Inside the ancient city – one of the oldest continuously inhabited urban centres in the world – the strains are already showing. Next to nothing moves here. Throughout almost two years of chaos and insurrection, residents who remained in the rebel-held east took to the streets during meal times. They drove their cars, walked to mosques, shopped in markets in between bombing raids. Not any more.
A motorcyclist and his passenger drive past a site in Aleppo hit by what rebels said were barrel bombs dropped by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad.
Aleppo is eerie and abandoned. Its streets seem cleaner and better-kept than before, mainly because there are so few residents left. The only messes to clean up are caused by regular bombing raids by Syrian planes and helicopters, which destroy homes and buildings with unmitigated savagery. In some districts near the eastern fringes, up to 30% of all buildings have been demolished. Whole neighbourhoods have been emptied, or are down to their last hardy souls, many of whom have no option but to stay. Abu Mahmoud was at the mosque when a barrel bomb destroyed half of his house in the Shaar district in February. He spent the rest of the winter living in the other half, exposed to the elements and still-constant menace from the skies. He says he expects to die there. "What am I going to do?" he asked plaintively, offering tea in china cups salvaged from the ruins. "This has become a war that is far bigger than any of us. The country is being destroyed, and the region is being sucked into a hole from which it can never recover. "This could have all been avoided if people spoke to each other from the beginning, if leaders acknowledged that the people have the right to expect things from them."
Further east, towards Aleppo's airport, which was taken back by regime forces this year, Hamid Mahmoud and his extended family were moving back into their home. A group of young girls were hosing out a courtyard – the mains water had been turned back on earlier in the week, one of few mercies in this unforgiving war. In one room, older women were tending a stove. And in the only other room, six men were sitting silently in the gloom. "Four days ago my wife was killed," said Mahmoud. "We had moved to Bustan al-Basha [another suburb of east Aleppo] and a barrel bomb hit our house. It was 10 at night and I dragged her body out of the bricks. He stares silently ahead, tears welling as he describes how two badly wounded girls were rescued by neighbours. Both have been taken to a hospital in Turkey.
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