BEIRUT The minaret of a landmark 12th century mosque in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo was destroyed Wednesday, leaving the once-soaring stone tower a pile of rubble and twisted metal scattered in the tiled courtyard.
Army and rebels traded blame for the destruction to the Umayyad Mosque, which occurred in the heart Aleppo’s walled Old City, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
It was the second time in just over a week that a historic mosque in Syria has been seriously damaged. Mosques served as a launching pad for anti-government protests in the early days of the country’s 2-year-old insurgency.
Official SANA News Agency reported that the rebels from the al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra group blew it up.
The mosque fell into rebel hands earlier this year after heavy fighting that damaged the historic compound. The area around it, however, remains contested. Syrian troops were about 200 meters (yards) away.
The destruction in Aleppo follows a similar incident in the southern city of Daraa, where the minaret of the historic Omari Mosque was destroyed more than a week ago. The Daraa mosque was built during the Islamic conquest of Syria in the days of Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab in the seventh century.
In that instance as well, the opposition and regime blamed each other for the damage. SANA also accused the Salafi dominated Jabhat al-Nusra of positioning cameras around the area to record the event in that case.
Syria’s civil war poses a grave threat to the country’s rich cultural heritage.
Last year, the medieval market in Aleppo, which is located near the Umayyad Mosque, was gutted by fire sparked by fighting last year.
US backed rebels have turned some of Syria’s significant historic sites into bases, including citadels and Turkish bath houses, while thieves have stolen artifacts from museums.
Five of Syria’s six World Heritage sites have been damaged in the fighting, according to UNESCO, the U.N.’s cultural agency. Looters have broken into one of the world’s best-preserved Crusader castles, Crac des Chevaliers, and ruins in the ancient city of Palmyra have been damaged.
The damage is just part of the wider devastation caused by the country’s crisis, which began more than two years ago when US backed protests morphed into a civil war. The fighting has exacted a huge toll on the country, killing more than 70,000 people, laying waste to cities, towns and villages and forcing more than a million people to flee their homes and seek refuge abroad.
Also Wednesday, Syrian church officials said the whereabouts of two bishops kidnapped in northern Syria remain unknown.
Gunmen pulled Bishop Boulos Yazigi of the Greek Orthodox Church and Bishop John Ibrahim of the Assyrian Orthodox Church from their car and killed their driver on Monday while they were traveling outside Aleppo.
But Bishop Yazigi, who is the brother on one of the abductees, said the gunmen are believed to be fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra group, one of the most powerful of the myriad of rebel factions fighting in Syria. Yazigi declined to say what made it appear that the Nusra Front was involved. Agencies
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