Aleppo's bloodiest week
An exclusive report from Aleppo, which is facing the worst bombing of Syria's war.
ALEPPO, Syria — Aleppo has seen its bloodiest week since the Syrian conflict began more than 32 months ago. I’d even venture to say it's the bloodiest in its entire recent history, a grotesque carnival of mayhem, death and carnage, perpetrated against the hapless and helpless citizens of this long-suffering ancient city. A thousand waves of invaders and marauders this city must have seen as countless civilizations upon its land rose and fell, but this recent episode is of such ferocious barbarity and bloodletting that it surely must rank somewhere at the top of its list of all time historical traumas.
Hunkered down in a friend’s basement in the commercial district of Jamilieh today, I counted eight explosions, all nearby. A few frantic phone calls and a quick roundup on my social media accounts verified what we had been dreading for the past couple of days — the rebels’ promised ultimatum of “revenge” for the regime's barrel bombing of their areas in east Aleppo. One phrase I repeatedly heard neatly summed up the situation: “The bombs are falling like rain in Halab [Aleppo].” And like rain they fell, across an arc of neighborhoods that roughly followed the front lines.
Panicked people ran for cover or fled their homes, as more than 25 strikes killed at least five and maimed more than 40, all civilians of course, their numbers reflecting the customary macabre aftermath of any attack in a densely crowded city such as Aleppo. Streets usually busy were eerily deserted as dusk fell and the city descended into almost absolute darkness. Only the dreary sound of power generators hummed an incessant background tune to the irregular loud bangs of explosions and the whooshes and whistles of rockets and shells skirting the rooftops, as people hunkered down in their homes and dreaded what continued horrors the next day might bring.
The day’s carnage must be viewed against the absurdly horrendous events and unspeakable horrors of the preceding week. As helicopters flew their daily sorties over rebel areas of east Aleppo, they dropped fury and death from the sky, manifested in their deadly payload of half-ton TNT barrels filled with vicious metal shrapnel for maximum maiming effect. The resulting scenes of devastation, destruction and mayhem were beamed via news stations and social media to an uncaring world, which had quite frankly become bored and desensitized to Syrian suffering. Burned and charred vehicles, gutted and collapsed buildings as well as an abundance of severed body parts featured prominently in the macabre nightmare landscapes the scores of videos and pictures depicted.
