Syria: 11th-century minaret of Great Umayyad Mosque of Aleppo destroyed
The 11th-century minaret of the Great Umayyad Mosque of Aleppo, one of the world's oldest and most important, has been destroyed by shellfire as the Syrian war consumes the country's vast repository of historic sites.
By Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent
6:34PM BST 24 Apr 2013
The minaret dated back to 1090AD. (ALAMY)
Oppositions activists in the city said the minaret was hit by tank shells fired as part of a regime assault on the mosque, which was originally built in 715 by the Umayyad dynasty and which fell into rebel hands last week.
The minaret itself dated to 1090 AD.
Video posted by the Aleppo Media Centre showed a pile of rubble in the corner of the Great Mosque's courtyard, sprouting twisted metal spikes, where the minaret once stood. The colonnades and arches of the courtyard itself lie scorched, broken, and pockmarked with bullet and shell-holes.
The collapse of the minaret was also reported by state media, which said it had been blown up by Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda-linked group fighting with the rebels. It did not explain why a militant Sunni group would destroy a historic Sunni mosque.
The collapse also appeared to happen in the middle of a battle, with rebel soldiers stationed inside the mosque in the middle of live fire. They were claimed to be from Liwa al-Tawhid, a more moderate though Sunni Islamist-aligned brigade largely drawn from the countryside around Aleppo, rather than from Jabhat al-Nusra.
The opposition Syrian National Coalition described the targeting of the minaret as "an indelible disgrace".
"The deliberate destruction of this minaret, under whose shadow Saladin, Seif al-Dawla al-Hamdani and Abu Tayeb Abdel Rahman al-Mutanabbi rested, is a crime against human civilisation," its statement said, naming the celebrated Crusade-era Muslim leader, the most celebrate Emir of Aleppo, and a tenth Century poet.
The mosque was first damaged in fighting last October, a few weeks after the Old Souq of Aleppo, which it faces across a narrow alley used for months by snipers, was largely destroyed by fire.
Among Syria's other UNESCO-listed world heritage sites, the great Crusader castle of Crac des Chevaliers and the ancient Roman ruins of Palmyra have also been damaged.
The regime has slowly lost ground across Aleppo's old city, but still occupies the citadel, first occupied in the Third Millennium BC, which overlooks the city and whose gateway was blown up.
It continues to occupy the Christian quarter of the city. Two bishops, Bishop Boulos Yaziji of the Greek Orthodox church and Bishop Yohanna Ibrahim, a Syriac Orthodox, who were kidnapped by an unknown militia, remained missing, despite reports of their release on Tuesday evening.
"That report was a mistake," Bishop Luca, of the Greek Orthodox church in Damascus, told The Daily Telegraph. He was unable to explain how it happened.
In Rome, Pope Francis added his voice to calls for their release. One report, which Bishop Luca was unable to confirm, said the kidnappers identified themselves as Chechen.
Although losing ground in the north, the regime continued to regain lost territory further south. It captured the town of Otaiba, which rebels said was a key link in the supply of weapons to opposition forces fighting in the eastern suburbs of the capital, Damascus.
It was also pressing its assault on Qusayr, a key town between Homs and the Lebanese border.
