Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Almost 25,000 Dead as the United Nations Departs
Friday, August 17, 2012 at 9:421902 GMT: Syria. The must-watch video of the day. Sometimes, videos coming from Syria have an almost meditative element to them, as if so much can be learned from a single video. This is one of those instances.
This is Saleh el Dine, an upper-middle class commercial district in Aleppo. This is the kind of neighborhood you'd find near a major university in London, or Boston, filled with over-priced apartments, upper-class residents, students, coffee shops... the kind of place that ranges from peaceful to bustling depending on the time of day.
In this video it is neither peaceful or bustling. The neighborhood is more like hauntingly deserted, with the distant echo of war faintly heard in the background. The silence is stunning. Periodic gunfire can be heard, then a helicopter which is later seen overhead.
Suddenly, however, a massive explosion, as a bomb or a shell lands too close to the camera.
But after the excitement, the haunting stillness returns. This is what Aleppo has become.
1838 GMT: Syria. We have hundreds of videos of protests, but we'll share a few more of the larger ones. In the first the cameraman says this is Darayya, and he says today's date. Darayya is southwest of Damascus (map), has been fought over for weeks, and is one of the areas that some analysts believe the Free Syrian Army will eventually try to take in order to strike from there at the capital: