The geography of death in Aleppo (3)
Fixed checkpoints and mobile militias
A taxonomy of checkpoints
The checkpoint is one of the most important technologies of death that the Syrian forces use in urban spaces. Their function is to segment the city into smaller sectors that are easier to control. There are different types of checkpoints in Aleppo that vary in size, the types of weaponry used, and their dangerousness. The large checkpoints with heavy weaponry, such as tanks or armored personnel carriers, are usually deployed at strategic points such as the entrance of the city or nearby security branches or military facilities. While most checkpoints are fixed, some of them are mobile and move to locations unexpected by the enemy. In addition, the regime deployed many checkpoints within west Aleppo to segment the territory and control the circulation of the population. The largest checkpoints, however, are in the buffer zones, the spaces between the regime and opposition. Their function is to prevent the infiltration of the enemy, but also to terrorize civilians who try to cross them. The smaller ones reaffirm the sovereignty of the state within the areas where they are deployed, while the larger ones delineate the boundaries of Useful Syria. The latter have a military purpose, while the former’s main function is security.
The checkpoint is usually positioned at the border to maintain state sovereignty. Post-colonial scholar Stephen Morton notes,
[c]heckpoints provide a spatial representation of the order of sovereignty, and the security apparatus of the state. Conventionally understood as “a barrier or manned entrance, typically at a border, where travellers are subject to security checks” (Oxford English Dictionary [OED]), checkpoints demarcate the contours of political geography, and police the movement of the human populations that traverse these boundaries.98
When the checkpoint is moved inside, within a territory, it evidently indicates a crisis of sovereignty. The checkpoints around western Aleppo perform several functions that not only involve military calculations, but also the imposition of tariffs on commodities and people crossing them. Some of these checkpoints are terrifying, since Aleppans crossing them undergo a thorough search, intimidation, and harassment. Cell phones and computers are searched, including Word documents, Internet browsing history, pictures, Skype chatting history, etc. In many cases, civilians were arrested and disappeared because their browsing history shows they visited the Al Jazeera website or other media outlets critical of the regime.
The Syrian army controls the most restrictive checkpoints, which “are stationed along the highways entering the city and the two ring roads surrounding it.”99 The checkpoints located within western Aleppo are manned by the various security branches and are usually less restrictive. Caerus found that while the Syrian regime controlled only 35 percent of the neighborhoods in Aleppo in 2013–2014, it controlled 70 percent of all checkpoints.100 The most lethal checkpoint in Aleppo is without a doubt Karaj al-Hijaz, and has become one of the symbols of the regime’s violence (see Figure 2.9). It is known by residents as the “death crossing,” and when insurgents were controlling east Aleppo, it was the only point Aleppans used to cross to the other side.
Moving from the east to the western side of the city once took only a short bus ride. Now it involves navigating a labyrinth of side roads and as many as 20 checkpoints; an endurance test that can last between 10 and 16 hours. Most people don’t bother.101
Residents try to avoid crossing Karaj al-Hajez until it is absolutely necessary. In 2013–2014, west Aleppo was under siege for several months, which drove the price of basic commodities up. The price of food and fuel went up respectively by 400 percent and 1,200 percent, which forced many residents to buy them in east Aleppo.102 Some east Aleppans cannot find work in opposition area and are forced to cross the checkpoint on a daily basis and risk their lives. Others cross it to visit relatives on the other side. Two main snipers, in addition to two dozen auxiliary ones, control it, and often shoot civilians trying to cross to the other side. Residents documented that in April 2013, on average, snipers killed four people every day; and by February 2014, 213 people had been killed by snipers as they attempted to cross over to the other side.103 The area in between is a no man’s land, where the bodies of sniped civilians decompose for days without the possibility of removing and burying them. People have to walk approximately 400 meters to cross to the other side, and there are 22 snipers along the way; but the ones that target people the most are the ones positioned on top of the Municipal Building and Airways Building.104 To avoid their bullets, the residents attempt to understand the snipers’ logic and patterns but they often fail, as it is highly unpredictable. Even when Aleppans are successful in crossing the checkpoint, they are harassed and humiliated. One man explained that when the Syrian security and Hezbollah members found that he was from Masaken Hannano, one of the rebellious districts in east Aleppo, they humiliated him and put gasoline on his 13-year-old son and threatened to burn him.105
Aleppo Shabiha
The Shabiha (“ghosts” in Arabic) refers to the informal networks of thugs with whom the Syrian regime has developed strategic relationships since the 1970s. They are the eyes and ears of the state in the neighborhoods where they are based. To reward their loyalty, the regime allows them to engage in drug trafficking and smuggling of various commodities. They belong to various ethnic (Arab and Kurds), religious (Sunni, Shia, Armenians), or tribal (Berri and Mardini among others) groups in different cities. In Aleppo, Abu Ali Quzuk was the head of one of the large Shabiha groups, also called Lijan Sha’abia (Popular Committees). When the revolt began in 2011, he organized militias using a house located in Mouhafaza, an affluent district in the city center. After an assassination attempt against him, he left the neighborhood and moved elsewhere to keep the opposition activities away from the affluent areas.
According to Saber Darwīsh and Mohammad Abī Samrā, there are three types of Shabiha in Aleppo: 1) the al-Berri clan, who had been assigned the task of maintaining order in the city by Hafez al-Assad since the 1970s; 2) the petty criminals, many of whom were released in 2011 and were organized in militias; and 3) the police force, who often joined Shabiha groups to suppress protests. The Syrian regime did not bother to fund them adequately; instead, it asked loyal Aleppo merchants to provide the necessary funds for the salaries of the Shabiha. Some merchants refused to pay when the amounts and frequency of the payment increased exponentially, so the militias began looting and kidnapping the children of rich merchants for ransom.106
The Berri Clan is part of the al-Jiss tribe, and they began working with the regime in the mid-1970s. Hafez al-Assad used them in the 1980s to repress the Muslim Brotherhood in Aleppo. They were given a permanent seat in parliament to reward their loyalty to the regime.
Some of them became Shia, and opened Hussainiat in Bab al-Nayrab and al-Salihin, where they have approximately 5,000 members (see Figure 2.8).107 During the revolt, they formed Liwa Mouhamad al-Baqir along with other clans. Many tribal members from Aleppo rejected the official politics of their tribes and joined the Free Syrian Army.108 Kurdish Shabiha were also active in Aleppo; they are primarily composed of the Mardini tribe. In the 1930s, many Kurds, Arabs, Sunnis, and Christians migrated from Mardin in Turkey because of hunger and found refuge in Aleppo. They formed a close relationship with the state, and some became smugglers and had contacts with the security services. Many lived north of the Old City in Jabiri and Nile, which were constructed in the 1940s. Their leader was killed in 2014.109
The regime used a combination of checkpoints and Shabiha to crush the protests and any opposition in the city. Most checkpoints were fixed, but they sliced the territory into small and manageable sections. Shabiha were mobile and could be deployed rapidly and moved instantly from one district to another. In addition, unlike the army or foreign forces, who were unfamiliar with the geography of the city, Shabiha were often local and knew the city and its streets intimately. They had a deep understanding of the social networks, relationships, and spatial practices of Aleppans. They used mental maps instead of high definition military maps to repress opposition to the Assad regime. They were effective in the beginning, when there was need for quick and accurate intervention at Aleppo University, al-Jabiri Square, or isolated neighborhoods where protesters gathered. Urbicidal processes in the early period (2011–2012) were fine-tuned to suppress grassroots resistance in specific neighborhoods. After the liberation of eastern Aleppo (starting in July–August 2012), the regime began a campaign of systematic destruction of opposition areas.
The destruction of east Aleppo
The fighting between the regime and opposition forces in 2012–2013 led to a spatial separation between east and west Aleppo. In early 2013, the Syrian army and its allies stabilized the frontline around the wealthy areas and non-Sunni neighborhoods after losing most poor Sunni districts in east Aleppo. The weaponization of demographics in west Aleppo and the strategic positioning of the regime’s military bases and security branches (see Figure 2.10) prevented opposition forces from moving further west.
Each side cleansed its territory from undesirable elements. On the one hand, the FSA killed the leader of the pro-regime Berri militia and forced its members out in July 2012. In addition, it attacked police stations and expelled the police forces from east Aleppo.110 On the other hand, the Syrian army bombed the University in west Aleppo and killed many students to put an end to the wave of protests. Assad made it clear that no opposition would be tolerated in west Aleppo. In addition, the regime forces turned the topography of Aleppo into a lethal tool by weaponizing its hills, green areas, and river.
The topography was utilized to further consolidate the separation between east and west. Syrian forces used Hannano barracks, located on a hill nearby Sheikh Maqsoud, to bomb and terrorize the Kurdish residents. Its purpose was to deter the Kurdish neighborhoods from joining the opposition.111 To further reinforce the separation between east and west, the government militias kidnapped hundreds of civilians at checkpoints after the liberation of east Aleppo. In January 2013, more than a hundred were tortured and executed in a park in a regime-controlled area and thrown in the Queiq River. Their bodies were found downstream in Bustan al-Qasr, a district controlled by the FSA.112 These examples demonstrate the extent to which the Syrian government weaponized the topography of Aleppo to subdue the population and maintain control over west Aleppo.
Once the borders between east and west Aleppo were erected, the regime began a campaign of systematic destruction of infrastructure in east Aleppo. The army used barrel bombs as a main tool to terrorize the inhabitants (see Figure 2.11). Urbanist Deen Sharp notes,
[t]he army’s aerial assault has relied on barrel bombs, low-cost cylinders filled with explosives, fuel, and steel fragments that are manually deployed from helicopters (Lloyd 2013). The bombs have become synonymous with the government’s indiscriminate destruction of the Syrian urban landscape.113
The Syrian, and later Russian jets systematically targeted hospitals, bakeries, and gas stations.
Evidently, the primary motive of the urbicidal violence is to impose a geography of terror in east Aleppo. The massive destruction of east Aleppo with barrel bombs served several purposes. First, it created a climate of fear that demoralized the population and ultimately broke the resistance in Aleppo (see Figure 2.15). The targeting of hospitals had devastating effects on the population. A report published by the Atlantic Council in 2017 provides a detailed assessment of human loss and infrastructural damage. The authors explain,
[a]ccording to the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), 172 verified attacks on hospitals or medical facilities were recorded across Syria between June and December 2016. Of those, 73 verified attacks—42 percent of the total—were recorded in the besieged, opposition-held half of Aleppo.114
The destruction of medical facilities, which the Syrian forces used extensively, is an intrinsic and vital component of urbicide.115
The second purpose of the massive usage of barrel bombs (which are inadequate for a military campaign since they are highly inaccurate) is to teach other liberated regions a lesson: no post-Assad Syria is permissible and those who violate this fundamental principle will pay a high price. Third, by driving the residents out of the city, the regime made it easier for its army and militias to invade it. Fourth, the government created an additional burden on the liberated territories by pushing large number of Syrians into them. The liberated areas were already facing an economic crisis and shortages of basic commodities. They had limited resources to meet the needs of their inhabitants and thus struggled when they had to share them with an increasingly larger number of displaced Syrians. Finally, the regime destroyed large sections of east Aleppo and uprooted the inhabitants in order to rebuild these areas according to neoliberal urban plans. The politics of post-conflict reconstruction is a continuation of urbicide by other means.116 Countless Aleppans were unable to return to their homes because pro-regime militia members occupied them.117 In many cases, the deeds of the estate were purposely destroyed to prevent the inhabitants from returning to their neighborhoods.118
Vertical power
Snipers played a crucial role in the Syrian conflict by initially preventing gatherings in public spaces, and later by terrorizing people living in areas controlled by insurgents. When protests erupted in March 2011, the Syrian regime positioned snipers on rooftops to target peaceful protesters and disrupt demonstrations. Government media claimed infiltrators, not Syrian soldiers, were shooting at protesters. Syrian army defectors, however, claimed the real perpetrators were the regime’s soldiers. A sniper deployed to Izraa, near Dara’a on April 25, 2011 told Human Rights Watch,
General Nasr Tawfiq gave us the following orders: “Don’t shoot at the armed civilians. They are with us. Shoot at the people whom they shoot at.” We were all shocked after hearing his words, as we had imagined that the people were killed by foreign armed groups, not by the security forces.119
Since the beginning, the role of snipers was primarily to terrorize civilians, and only secondarily to target military objectives. Historian Mirjana Ristic explains,
[U]nlike Foucault’s (1995) conception of the panopticon, the snipers’ gaze in Sarajevo was not a disciplinary technology or normalization regime. Rather, snipers used the asymmetric visibility as a mechanism for the production of terror. A significant part of Sarajevo’s public space was reconstituted into a “landscape of fear”—a network of dangerous and forbidden zones in which any mundane, everyday activity became potentially lethal.120
Likewise, sniping in Aleppo is about imposing a topography of terror and preventing a normal life in opposition-controlled areas. Countless witnesses have told terrifying stories about snipers targeting children playing in the street, civilians shopping, and even mentally disabled persons wandering aimlessly in the city after the bombing of the psychiatric hospital.121
Ristic identifies two types of snipers operating in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia during their civil war. The first was the leisure sniper, who was not from the capital, did not know its residents, and would shoot at any moving target—including children and other non-combatants. These leisure snipers were “‘paid killers’—for whom the killing of Sarajevo’s residents was a part-time job.”122 The second type was the considerate sniper who lived in the city before the war, and would avoid targeting residents. Instead, he used his bullets to shoot at empty buildings or broken cars. In some cases, he would alert residents when he saw their children playing in the sniper’s alley.123
The Syrian regime was highly aware of the risks of deploying snipers, and more generally soldiers, in their city of origin. Since the massacres of 1980–1982, it recognized the need for bringing soldiers in from elsewhere to crush a revolt. Additionally, the regime often used one ethnic group or religious community against another. The regime’s deployment of non-Syrian militias (Iraqi, Afghani, and Iranian) or armies (Iranian and Russian) to repress its own population addresses that specific problem. Bashar al-Assad crushed a Druze rebellion in November 2000 and a Kurdish uprising in March 2004 with the help of Arab tribes. It recruited tribes from northeastern Syria and soldiers from the coast and Damascus to massacre civilians in Aleppo and Hama in 1980 and 1982.
Most of the regime’s snipers in Aleppo are of the leisure type. There is no precise information about the number of snipers deployed in the city, but they are probably in the hundreds, if not thousands. David Nott, a British surgeon who worked in field hospitals in opposition-controlled areas, explains that every day, snipers would target a different part of the body for leisure. He explains,
From the first patients that came in the morning, you could almost tell what you’d see for the rest of the day, […] It was a game. We heard the snipers were winning packets of cigarettes for hitting the correct number of targets.124
Snipers were positioned along 10 miles of fighting front which went through intertwined spaces controlled by regime and opposition forces.125 Activists created Facebook pages to provide information about the location of snipers and the alleys or neighborhoods they could target. One sniper, if well positioned, could control a large section of a neighborhood and keep people inside their houses for extended periods. Aleppans began putting up signs to alert residents of the presence of a sniper in a specific area.126 Local journalists wrote countless articles about how to avoid a sniper, and what to do in the event someone was injured.127
Aleppo residents tried to understand the logic of snipers and develop strategies accordingly to avoid their bullets, but it proved to be a futile exercise. For example, a sniper could target a woman or a child without killing them. Then, when a resident tries to help, both the rescuer and rescued would be killed. In some cases, two snipers in different locations coordinate to kill a civilian. The first shoots at a target from one side to force her to escape, while the second kills her from the opposite side. To protect themselves, Aleppans used buses stacked on top of each other to barricade a street and block a sniper’s line of sight.128 Families sealed their windows with sandbags to avoid snipers’ bullets, while others were forced to live in one section of the house as the rest was too exposed. The FSA positioned mannequins in specific locations to confuse snipers, and in some cases to determine their locations and inform residents. By examining the bullet’s points of entry and exit in and out of the mannequin, it is possible to determine the angle from which it was shot and therefore identify the sniper’s position.129
Snipers positioned on the tallest buildings in Aleppo were the most terrifying, since they could reach a much wider area and were difficult to eliminate (see Figure 2.12). For example, Aleppans suffered a great deal from the snipers positioned on the rooftop of the Municipal Building, which is the tallest building in Aleppo, with 23 floors. Syrian forces turned the city’s entire bureaucratic structures into military outposts to target civilians and insurgents in east Aleppo.
As explained above, the death crossing in Bustan al-Qasr is one of the most feared points in the entire city (see Figure 2.9), because it is the only location Aleppans can use to go to the regime’s side. Aleppo’s inhabitants called it the “Corridor of Death,” since many have lost their lives trying to cross it.130 Doctors working in east Aleppo often tried to save the lives of those shot at the crossing. They estimate that 10,000 people used the crossing every day, and 15–20 civilians were killed.131 Around 30 percent of the causalities in Aleppo were from snipers’ bullets, while 50 percent were killed by barrel bombs, and another 20 percent died in combat.132
The study of urbicide in Aleppo requires an examination that goes beyond a two-dimensional analysis of a map. To understand the way snipers built a topography of terror in the city, I examine their networks and the spaces they covered through their well calculated positioning. Analyzing the significance of verticality, geographer Stephen Graham explains,
Until recently, addressing such a question has been hampered by the dominance of remarkably flat perspectives about human societies in key academic debates about cities and urban life. In geography, especially, territory, sovereignty and human experience have long been flattened by a paradoxical reliance on flat maps—and, more recently, aerial and satellite images – projected or imaged from the disembodied bird’s or God’s eye view from high above.133
A three-dimensional analysis is essential to comprehend the logic behind the government’s deployment of vertical power in Aleppo. One of the important advantages the Syrian regime has over opposition forces is its total supremacy over the sky. This is combined with its control of the affluent districts and city center, where the high-rise buildings are (see Figure 2.12). Table 2.1 shows a list of these buildings with their heights.
—————————————————————
Table 2.1 A sample of high-rise buildings in Aleppo
1 Ar-Rahman Mosque 246 ft
2 Municipal Building ≈271 ft
3 Shahba Sham Hotel ≈235 ft
4 Mirage Hotel ≈177 ft
5 The Citadel of Aleppo ≈164 ft
6 Syrian Airways Building ≈153 ft
7 Great Mosque of Aleppo ≈147 ft
8 Syrian Railways Building ≈141 ft
9 Aleppo Sheraton Hotel ≈118 ft
—————————————————————
These high-rise buildings date from different periods, and represent different forms of power. Four types of buildings can be identified: 1) official/governmental buildings; 2) luxury hotels; 3) mosques; and 4) historical monuments. The first type symbolizes state power and its bureaucracy. The most prominent example of that power in Aleppo is the Municipal Building, which is located in the city center nearby Saadallah al-Jabiri Square, the square protesters attempted to reach countless times in 2011–2012 (see Figure 2.13). It is also a strategic location for snipers, since it overlooks opposition-controlled areas on three sides. The second type represents the power of the capitalist class, whether mercantile or neoliberal. The proximity of this elite class to the Syrian regime allowed it to invest its wealth in tourism and build luxury hotels. High-rises such as Mirage Hotel (previously Amir Palace Hotel) (see Figure 2.13) or Shahba Sham Hotel became strategic locations for snipers, and were frequently targeted by opposition fighters. They illustrate the organic relationship between Syrian bureaucracy and the Aleppan capitalist class.
The third type of vertical power is the religious institution. The tallest mosques, namely, Ar-Rahman and Hafez al-Assad, which were built in the 1990s and 2000s respectively, dwarf the Umayyad mosque, which dates from the eighth century (its minaret was built in 1090). The tallest mosques are all in the regime-controlled areas, and many of them were used for sniping. The Syrian regime built these mosques in the wealthy neighborhoods to polish its image and please the Aleppan pious community. Finally, the citadel represents several layers of historical sedimentation that the Assads inherited from the past (see Figure 2.14). It played a crucial role in the twelfth and thirteen centuries when Muslims used it to stop the Crusades’ advances. When the FSA reached Aleppo, Syrian forces positioned more than 100 snipers to maintain their control over it and the surrounding areas. The opposition forces used several tactics, including digging tunnels around it to take it back, but were not successful. A fighter positioned in the area explains,
“There have been many attempts by the rebels to liberate the citadel,” […] But the high ground and high walls, and the bullets fired so easily through its arrow slits, […] “make the mission to liberate it too difficult for now.”134
Conclusion
The regime’s control of western Aleppo in 2016 was not coincidental. It was the result of many factors, including the urban history of the city, the way demographics were weaponized, and the regime’s overwhelming superiority in the sky. The fact that all the high-rise buildings were located in western Aleppo was not accidental either. These structures are the urban manifestations of political, economic, and religious powers, and as such they were located in affluent Aleppo. The combination of these factors gave the regime a major advantage over the insurgents and civilians living in east Aleppo. Against the Syrian forces’ supremacy, residents in eastern Aleppo had limited tools to defend themselves.
Belgian urban planner Le Corbusier played an instrumental role in the colonial project in North Africa. He created urban forms in Tunisia and elsewhere to help the French colonial power maintain control over its colonies. Stephen Graham writes, “[Le Corbusier] celebrated both the modernism of the aircraft-machine and its vertical destructive power. ‘What a gift to be able to sow death with bombs upon sleeping towns,’ he wrote in his 1935 book Aircraft.”135 Le Corbusier wanted to destroy the Old City and its dense urban fabric because it is an easy target for bombers in time of war. He argued for replacing it with towers located far apart, and as a result, difficult to target by air.136
Le Corbusier’s colonial mindset sheds light on the way urban forms, which seem benign in time of peace, can be weaponized in time of war. During the second half of the nineteenth century, wealthy notables and Christian families moved to modern Ottoman districts in west Aleppo. They left behind the walled city, its dense urban fabric, and unsanitary housing. Their new districts witnessed the erection of different types of high-rises, while the city they had left behind expanded into informal housing. The legacy of these urban processes, some of which are more than a century old, is still with us today. More importantly, these processes were weaponized by a criminal regime to suppress a popular revolt and kill civilians.
Notes [urls with Arabic in it are messed up in the original text]
98. Stephen Morton, “Sovereignty and necropolitics at the line of control,”Journal of Post Colonial Writing 50, no. 1 (2014): 19–30.
99. David Kilcullen, Nate Rosenblatt, and Jwanah Qudsi, “Mapping the conflict in Aleppo, Syria,” Caerus. Last modified February 2014. Accessed June 2, 2019. http://caerusassociates.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Caerus_AleppoMappingProject_FinalReport_02-18-14.pdf, 17.
100. The Caerus researchers were able to count 1,462 checkpoints inside and around Aleppo. During that period, the regime controlled twice as many checkpoints as the opposition. See Kilcullen, Rosenblatt, and Qudsi, “Mapping the conflict in Aleppo, Syria,” 19.
101. James Harkin, “Inside Aleppo, Syria’s most war-torn city,” Newsweek. Last modified August 19, 2015. Accessed June 2, 2019. www.newsweek.com/2015/08/28/syria-war-bombing-aleppo-364035.html.
102. Nahel Hariri, “The siege of Aleppo. Will the crossing open again?” Al-Hayat. Last modified November 4, 2015. Accessed June 2, 2019. www.حصار-حلب-الثاني-هل-يعود-المعبر/830427/alhaya
103. Mohammed al-Khatieb, “Aleppans set up money transfer offices within the city,” Al-Monitor. Last modified July 9, 2014. Accessed June 2, 2019. www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/07/syria-aleppo-money-transfer-office.html.
104. “The boy of the crossing,” Ahewar. Last modified December 16, 2013. Accessed June 2, 2019. www.ahewar.org/debat/show.art.asp?aid=391556&r=0.
105. Mayala, Hammam, and Salen, “Aleppo: People, place, and war.”
106. and Abī Samrā, ma’si halb [Tragedies of Aleppo], 18–22.
107. Hussainiat are Shia places of worship.
108. “War of the marginal margins,” Shaam Network. Last modified January 25, 2016. Accessed June 2, 2019. www.shaam.org/articles/studies-and-research/-الحلبية-الهوامشحرب.html.
109. Ibid.
110. Haroon Siddique and Brian Whitaker, “Syrian rebels ‘overrun Aleppo police stations,’” Guardian. July 31, 2012. Accessed October 12, 2019. www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jul/31/syria-aleppo-fighting-goes-on-live.
111. John Caves, “Backgrounder: Syrian Kurds and the Democratic Union Party (PYD). Institute for the Study of War. December 6, 2012. Accessed October 17, 2019. www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Backgrounder_SyrianKurds.pdf.
112. Luke Mogelson, “The river martyrs,” New Yorker. April 29, 2013. www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/04/29/the-river-martyrs.
113. Deen Sharp, “Urbicide and the arrangment of violence in Syria,” in Deen Sharp and Claire Panetta (Eds.), Beyind the Square: Urbanism and the Arab Springs (New York: Terreform/Urban Research, 2016), 133.
114. Maksymilian Czuperski, Faysal Itani, Ben Nimmo, Eliot Higgins, Emma Beals, “Breaking Aleppo: hospital attacks,” Atlantic Council, February 2017. Accessed October 12, 2019. www.publications.atlanticcouncil.org/breakingaleppo/hospital-attacks/.
115. Graham, Stephen, “Lessons in urbicide.” New Left review 19(19): 63-77. January 2003.
116. Sawsan Abou Zainedin and Hani Fakhani, “Syria’s urbicide: the built environment as a means to consolidate homogeneity,” The Aleppo Project, July 2019. Accessed October 17, 2019. www.thealeppoproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/SyriasUrbicideSawsanAbouZainedinHaniFakhani2019.pdf.
117. Robert F. Worth, “Aleppo after the fall,” New York Times Magazine, May 24, 2017. Accessed October 17, 2019. www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/magazine/aleppo-after-the-fall.html.
118. Joseph Daher, “The paradox of Syria’s reconstruction,” Carnegie Middle East Center. September 4, 2019. Accessed October 12, 2019. https://carnegie-mec.org/2019/09/04/paradox-of-syria-s-reconstruction-pub-79773.
119. “Syria: defectors describe orders to shoot unarmed protesters,” Human
Rights Watch. Last modified July 9, 2011. Accessed June 2, 2019. www.hrw.
org/news/2011/07/09/syria-defectors-describe-orders-shoot-unarmed-
protesters#.
120. Mirjana Ristic, Architecture, Urban Space and War: The Destruction and
Reconstruction of Sarajevo (London: Palgrave, 2018), 59.
121. “Snipers target mental patients in Syria,” News24. Last modified October
10, 2013. Accessed June 2, 2019. www.news24.com/World/News/Snipers-
target-mental-patients-in-Syria-20130110.
122. Ristic, Architecture, Urban Space and War, 53.
123. Ibid.
124. Zaher Sahloul, “The corridor of death,” Foreign Policy. Last modified March 4, 2014. Accessed June 2, 2019. https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/03/04/the-corridor-of-death/.
125. Liqa Maki, “Beware the Sniper… You’re in Aleppo,” Al-Jazeera. Last modified September 5, 2013. Accessed June 2, 2019. www.aljazeera.net/.حلب-في-فأنت-القنص-من-احذ2013/5/9/news/reportsandinterviews
126. Alanadol, “‘Beware! Sniper’: a sign of the smell of death in Bosnia and Aleppo,” El Watan News. Last modified August 3, 2013. Accessed June 2, 2019. www.elwatannews.com/news/details/238126.
127. Lubna Salem, “A detailed protocol about how to avoid the sniper’s eye,”Raseef22. Last modified September 1, 2016. Accessed June 2, 2019. https://.القن ّ اص-عين-لتجن ّ ب-تفصيلي-برتوكول-72729/raseef22.com/article
128. Olivier Laurent, “This is the surprising way some Syrians are protecting themselves from snipers,” Time. Last modified March 27, 2015. Accessed June 2, 2019. http://time.com/3760455/aleppo-busses-syria/.
129. “Outwitting Syrian snipers,” Reuters. Last modified February 4, 2013. Accessed June 2, 2019. www.reuters.com/news/picture/outwitting-syrian-snipers-idUSRTR3DCLA.
130. Sahloul, “The corridor of death.”
131. “Snipers kill civilians at the death corridor,” Al Jazeera. Last modified September 13, 2013. Accessed June 2, 2019. www.aljazeera.net/news/-الموت-بمعبر-المدنيين-يحصدون-القناصة/2013/9/13/reportsandinterviews.بحلب
132. Maki, “Beware the sniper.”
133. Stephen Graham, Vertical: The City from Satellites to Bunkers (London: Verso, 2016).
134. Abigail Hauslohner and Ahmed Ramdan, “Ancient Syrian castles serve again as fighting positions,” Washington Post. Last modified May 4, 2013. Accessed June 2, 2013. www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/ancient-syrian-castles-serve-again-as-fighting-positions/2013/05/04/5d2bb176-b3f8-11e2-9a98-4be1688d7d84_story.html.
135. Graham, Vertical, 64.
136. Ibid.
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