"Raging fire leaves Aleppo’s medieval marketplace in ruins" by Anne Barnard | New York Times, September 30, 2012
BEIRUT — Fire swept through the old central souk, or marketplace, of Aleppo in Syria on Saturday, heavily damaging a vast and well-preserved labyrinth of medieval storehouses, shops, schools, and courtyards as fierce clashes between security forces and insurgents vowing to carry out a ‘‘decisive battle’’ for the city continued.
One video shot by antigovernment activists showed a curtain of dark smoke hanging over the center of Aleppo near the old city, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Another showed intense, orange flames engulfing heavy wooden doors in what appeared to be one of the market’s arched stone passageways.
The fire started late Friday amid heavy government shelling, and was still burning Saturday morning, activists said. One activist based in the city said hundreds of shops were destroyed, the Associated Press reported.
Aleppo, one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities and Syria’s largest, has been staggering for months under a bloody battle that has reduced some residential areas to rubble, and with no deaths immediately reported from the blaze, that damage pales compared with the recent human toll.
Yet serious damage to an area that Syrians widely consider one of their greatest treasures is likely to stir anger at both sides — each of which blames the other for the destruction in the city — in a conflict that seems mired in stalemate.
It could also make the rebels’ latest push in Aleppo backfire politically: Some opponents of President Bashar Assad were already incensed Saturday at insurgents they said had operated conspicuously near the old city.
‘‘Our hearts and minds have been burned in this fire,’’ said a doctor in Aleppo who gave her name only as Dima. ‘‘It’s not just a souk and shops, but it’s our soul, too.’’
She said she supported peaceful resistance against Assad, and pronounced herself ‘‘annoyed, annoyed, annoyed’’ with fighters from the rebel Tawhid Brigade, which announced the offensive Thursday.
The fighters said they were seeking to ‘‘liberate’’ neighborhoods that had remained largely progovernment and were being used as posts from which to attack the opposition.
But in a Skype interview, Dima said the recent fighting cast doubt on both the rebel leaders’ tactical wisdom and their intentions. She called them ‘‘performers’’ who had needlessly provoked the government by posing for pictures outside the souk and the nearby 12th-century mosque — which she worried would now be shelled — and who ‘‘talked nonsense.’’
Dima, the doctor, who lives on the western side of Aleppo, said she believed that the fire had been started by incendiary bullets from government snipers. But she blamed the rebels for approaching the old city, which she said had no government target, and said they seemed more concerned with the number of areas they could seize than with their tactical importance.
‘‘They are not the army of freedom,’’ she said. ‘‘They are the army of spite.’’
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Brigadier Bashir al-Hajji, the commander of the Tawhid Brigade, said the offensive had worked and that rebels were progressing toward the heart of Aleppo. Rebels and activists said the government had started the blaze by firing incendiary bullets.
He said he had visited the market area, where, he said in a Skype interview, ‘‘there’s anger, but anger against Bashar and his collaborators.’’ He added, ‘‘Everybody is angry, trying to save what can be saved from their shops.’’
Aleppo’s old souk, much of it dating to the 17th century, is not only an important tourist destination but also a vibrant center of commerce and community, housing vendors of pastries, spices, antiques, and crafts.
The specific cause of the fire was not determined, but it came after the most intense fighting across the city in weeks. The government said rebels had attacked on a number of fronts in the city on Friday and had been pushed back with heavy casualties.
Activists said that antigovernment fighters had tried to put out the fire, but that it was difficult because of government snipers in the area, who activists have said set up positions in the city’s 13th-century citadel, which overlooks the souk. The souk’s wooden doors and stores of fabric and other flammable materials would have spread the blaze quickly.
The government news agency SANA did not immediately acknowledge the fire, but reported continuing clashes across Aleppo on Saturday, saying security forces ‘‘killed and wounded scores of terrorists,’’ its designation for its armed opponents.
The claims by both sides could not immediately be verified because of government restrictions on reporting in Syria.
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