Every time I come back from a trip, I am asked what a city at war looks like. This time it is Aleppo. I find there is a certain attraction in urban landscapes transformed by war. There is none of the bustle and stress of big cities, but rather silence and an impression of slow motion. The heart rate of the city slows down.

Ironically, I am more alert and have greater curiosity in a city destroyed; I am more sensitive to the charm of the city when it has been battered, slashed and maimed by weapons.

The rebels claim that their Free Syrian Army (FSA) controls 70% of Aleppo, but there is no way of checking this or finding visual evidence as no one can cross to the “other side,” to the parts of Aleppo still under government control. All the time I was in Aleppo I was fascinated by this unreachable other side which can only be glimpsed through cracks that provide shooting positions for FSA snipers. My imagination was fired by the unreachable.

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It is the same on both sides, impossible to know or see what is in the other world. As I have no idea of what life is like beyond the front lines, do the people of Aleppo in neighborhoods not held by the rebels have any idea of what is happening in liberated Aleppo?

I went to the six battle fronts in Aleppo: Bustan al-Basha, Bustan al-Qasr, Salah al-Din, Al-Amria, Sheikh Said and the Old City, the areas with the most dramatic scenes of destruction. Buildings on these fronts appear to be crumbling, decomposing on the spot.

They are empty. Rebels and Syrian soldiers observe one another across the ruins, sometimes speaking, screaming abuse and accusing the others of fighting for the wrong cause, of killing their fellow countrymen.

The fighting is not as fierce as it was when I was there in October last year. It is a war of attrition, staking out positions. Sometimes the rebels launch attacks to gain some ground, but the situation is fairly stationary.

The rebels are so under-equipped, we can wonder if the Syrian armed forces in front of them are totally inefficient or whether they have lost any motivation they once had; it may be both, or it may be the strategy used by the regime, the bet being that the rebels will be worn down, that the situation will become bogged down, so that the government forces can then win the battle of Aleppo.

Jérôme Sessini

Jérôme Sessini

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