Some six months after Syria's rebels tried to storm the country's largest city, they can claim the eastern part of Aleppo and perhaps 60 percent overall. In the west, the government army has the remaining 40 percent of the city.
The line dividing these two areas is supposedly the front line in Aleppo's war. But lately the front has gone cold, as people here say in Arabic.
You can still hear shots. But peering through a tiny little hole in a stone wall separating the two sides, this particular part of government-held Aleppo looks like a no man's land. There's a lot of trash, abandoned buildings, a mosque that looks like it's been abandoned.
The shots are from a government sniper, posted on top of one of those abandoned buildings. Although there's not much fighting here anymore, government soldiers sometimes try to pick off rebel fighters or civilians who cross from one side to another.
http://www.npr.org/2013/01/14/169305322/status-report-on-fighting-in-aleppo-syria