{"id":10655,"date":"2013-01-30T12:33:27","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T11:33:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=10655"},"modified":"2013-01-30T12:35:18","modified_gmt":"2013-01-30T11:35:18","slug":"aleppo-then-and-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=10655","title":{"rendered":"Aleppo: then and now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Aleppo in Syria is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world with origins dating back to the early second millennium BC. Until recently, it was a thriving urban community of some 2.3 million. Today it is a city ravaged by civil war.<\/p>\n<p>Less than two years ago and just a week or two before the current political unrest commenced, I was on a visit to Aleppo as a tourist and marvelled at the citadel and the souq. You can read a short account of my time in the historic city <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/Levant.html#Aleppo\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For months now, Aleppo &#8211; like most other cities in Syria &#8211; has been blighted by fighting. This week, we learned of the horror of more than 100 men being bound and shot and abandoned. You can read a news item on the massacre <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/2013\/jan\/29\/syrian-rebels-bodies-aleppo-canal\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>While I long for the overthrow of\u00a0Bashar al-Assad\u00a0and his regime, I despair at the death, destruction and displacement and fear for the future of the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Aleppo in Syria is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world with origins dating back to the early second millennium BC. Until recently, it was a thriving urban community of some 2.3 million. Today it is a city ravaged by civil war. Less than two years ago and just a week or two [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-life-thoughts","category-world-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10655"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10663,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10655\/revisions\/10663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}