Aleppo's Sheikh Najjar: The death of a once-rich Syrian city

Aleppo's Sheikh Najjar: The death of a once-rich city - Middle East - World - The Independent

Miles of underground tunnels still lace their way beneath what had once been the Sheikh Najjar Industrial Zone, while men from al-Qaeda, Jabel el-Nusra, Jihad Islamia, the al-Sham Brigade and remnants of the old ‘Free Syria Army’ – all struggling to overthrow Assad’s regime – spent two years mining the buildings above ground, hacking lorry-wide passageways between their walls and cutting out sniper’s nests in every street and on every floor. What had been one of Syria’s newest industrial estates was transformed into a place of death; food stores and grain mills were turned into arms storage depots, their basements into dormitories for the hundreds of rebels who lived here.