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The agonies now afflicting it seem uniquely cruel, even by the perverted standards of this long-running civil war. Six hospitals have been bombed or shelled in the past two weeks, killing doctors and children. Neighbourhoods are in ruins. Residents lack water and electricity. Aid agencies warn of a humanitarian disaster.

The city is divided between forces loyal to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and rebel groups, including al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaida affiliate. Kurdish forces control some neighbourhoods, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant lurks to the northeast.

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Recent attempts to negotiate a ceasefire between the Syrian government and some rebel groups have floundered in Aleppo. In the eyes of all the civil war’s belligerents, says Landis, it is simply too valuable.

“Assad wants it, because if he can take Aleppo, he’ll have the northern capital. He’ll have all the cities. Then the rebels are just a bunch of hillbillies,” he says. “They will be marginal, and he will close in on them in time.”

For the Kurds, the country north of Aleppo is their chance to consolidate a proto-statelet across northern Syria, linking it to enclaves they have carved out farther east. Such an outcome is unacceptable to Turkey, which is supplying many of the non-Kurdish rebel militias. And these militias are fighting so fiercely for Aleppo in no small part to keep their supply lines open to Turkey.

While all these factors are intrinsic to Syria’s current civil war, they are also nearly timeless. Aleppo has been fought over for millennia precisely because it is a gateway to Anatolia, the sea and the desert.