ALEPPO, Syria — The Turkish army on May 21 withdrew excavation equipment from the vicinity of Tadef, in the northeastern countryside of Aleppo, after the city’s inhabitants objected to the digging of a military trench that would divide their neighborhoods and prevent some from reaching their agricultural lands in the city’s surrounding areas under the Syrian regime's control.
The residents argue that should the city be divided into two parts, they wouldn't be able to retake control of the surrounding areas held by the regime.
