Aleppo News

Emad ad-Din al-Rashid, a former assistant dean at the Islamic law college of Damascus University, opened his MacBook Air laptop and flipped through spreadsheets detailing the unmet needs of seemingly every besieged neighborhood across Syria.

In the early days of the Syrian revolution, those hoping for the speedy demise of President Bashar al-Assad's regime held their breath for Aleppo.

BEIRUT/ALEPPO, 27 October 2011 - Mufid's small manufacturing business in a poor neighbourhood on the edge of Aleppo, Syria's commercial capital, used to run on trust because he would receive goods and pay later - a system of trading that locals call `khamisat'. Derived from the Arabic word for Thursday, `khamisat' meant Mufid would only pay for his ... (more)

Syrian forces have extended a security sweep near the Turkish border to the merchant city of Aleppo, activists said, as President Bashar al-Assad pledged reforms that protesters said failed to meet popular demands.