Before Aleppo became a symbol of the horrors of Syria's ongoing war, it was known for its traders and craftspeople -- a city where Muslims, Jews, and Christians rubbed elbows in some of the most elegant bazaars and courtyards in the Middle East. But a current of grievances ran beneath the cobblestones. The Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT has allowed RFE/RL to reproduce 14 images from their remarkable archive to help tell the story of Syria's devastated former second city and the war that has engulfed it.
Aleppo Before The Fall
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A young Syrian working on restoration of an ancient doorway in 2004. When Hafez al-Assad's son Bashar was sworn in as president in 2000, there was hope that tensions building in Syria might ease, especially after the newly sworn-in Alawite head of state married a British-born Sunni woman. But he entered power as a population explosion in Syria was beginning to bite. Under Bashar al-Assad, the repression soon continued apace.
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Aleppo citadel in 2009. By the time this photo was taken, strains were showing in many of the threads that held Syria together -- exacerbated by Assad's brutality, an extended drought, sectarian chauvinism, the domination of business by Alawite cronies, and a population crisis.