ALEPPO -- Once cogs in a dynamic industrial engine that helped power Syria's economy, the factories in a sprawling zone in the heart of battle-ravaged Aleppo now stand largely silent, the workers mostly fled. In their place, thousands of people sheltering from the violence that has swept Syria's northern commercial capital since July, and from the severe winter weather that has brought misery to much of the Middle East.
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The Shaikh Najjar complex opened five years ago in Aleppo, Syria's commercial capital in the north of the country, and was quickly touted as an economic success story. Today it works at about only 20 per cent capacity, according to one estimate. This is more to do with a lack of electricity and a dearth of supplies of much-needed raw materials than as a result of being directly caught up in the fighting.
In the initial weeks of the conflict last July, regime forces sent artillery shells smashing into the complex, alarming factory owners who begged that they be spared the violence so they could keep the wheels of industry turning.
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