Fighting Brings Down 11th Century Minaret in Aleppo

Before and After (BBC)

The Great Mosque of Aleppo, also known as the Umayyad mosque, has been the scene of much destruction in the war-torn city, and already was being cited as one of the prime examples of the toll the war is taking on antiquities.

Now, the oldest surviving part of the mosque, a minaret dating from AD 1090 (and which survived the Mongol conquest of 1260, which destroyed other parts of the mosque) has been brought down.

The mosque has been controlled by the rebels; government forces are fighting to retake it. The government claims the rebels set off explosives that brought the minaret down; the rebels say a tank fired a round that collapsed it. A You Tube video claims to show the immediate aftermath of the collapse: