Flicking through before-and-after photos of Aleppo’s Umayyad mosque on his phone, the city’s mufti Mahmoud Akkam said he initially wanted the celebrated landmark to be restored by fellow Syrians.
But when Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman chief of Russia’s Chechnya region, offered to repair the damage that the ancient mosque sustained in ferocious clashes four years ago, Mr. Akkam felt he could not say no.
Kadyrov’s assistance
A fund named after Mr. Kadyrov’s father Akhmat has already transferred the estimated $14 million needed to fund the mosque’s restorations.
If it is not enough, “they will transfer more”, Mr. Akkam told journalists on a tightly controlled tour of Aleppo organised by Russia’s military.
Syria’s second city was battered by four years of fighting between rebels in the east and government forces in the west, until an evacuation deal at the end of 2016 brought it under regime control.
In September 2015, Moscow began carrying out air strikes that have allowed Syrian troops to retake swathes of territory — including Aleppo. Now that it is back under government control, Russia appears keen to help rebuild it. Analysts say Syria’s financial institutions are not in a position to fund reconstruction and nations that have called for Mr. Assad’s ouster are unlikely to help.
Allies like Russia and Iran have stepped in to fill the void.
Syria signed a memorandum of understanding on Tuesday with Tehran for the provision of five gas units to help generate electricity and restore power to Aleppo.
And on Wednesday, Moscow said it will send some 4,000 tonnes of building materials and construction equipment to Syria to help “rebuild vital infrastructure for settlements freed from terrorists”.
The delivery — including 2,000 tonnes of metal water pipes and hundreds of kilometres of high-voltage cables — was being transported by train to a port in southern Russia for onward shipment to Syria.
Asked whether the West was helping rebuild Aleppo, Deputy Governor Faris Faris said Europe “only gave us militants to kill Syrian people”.
Russian forces were providing security for aid convoys and helping transport families displaced from Aleppo’s outskirts back into their battered home towns, said deputy provincial governor Hamid Kino.
Around 3,500 people were bussed back in the past month-and-a-half to towns recaptured by Syrian troops, said General Igor Yemelyanov, who heads the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria.
And within the city, Moscow has dispatched its military police to prevent looting and maintain order.
