Once considered the crown jewel of Syria, Aleppo has been the hardest hit and suffered the heaviest violence over the last five years. For a war that started in July of 2012, and cost the country more than 300,000 lives, it’s an all too constant reminder that the city has become a battleground for the Western section controlled by the Syrian Army and Eastern section patrolled by the Jihadi terrorists.
• Syria’s largest city, and the third largest in the region behind Constantinople and Cairo
• Located at the Northeastern tip of Syria
• First settled in 5000 BC
• Consistently inhabited since 4000 BC due to it’s proximity between the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia, present-day Iraq
• First city council established in 1868
• Population of about 2.3 million, roughly the same size as Toronto, Ontario
• UNESCO World Heritage site in 1986, Aleppo citadel (seen in the photo above), was built over three centuries from the 10th century and damaged in July 2015 by heavy air raid blasts
Media Spin 