Regime airstrikes level ‘economic powerhouse’ in Aleppo

A series of regime airstrikes on Saturday destroyed Syria’s largest textile factory, the “largest source of work from the Aleppo countryside to Idlib,” a local reporter told Syria Direct.

“The Dayri factory was an economic powerhouse,” said Bashar al-Halabi, the director of the news website Aleppo and Its Countryside Today, on Sunday. The plant, located near the Aleppo-Damascus international highway in the western Aleppo countryside, manufactured polyester and employed over 600 workers.

Many of the factory’s workers were trapped inside while fires burned the building down around them. Rescue workers from the Civil Defense managed to save the majority of those trapped inside. 13 workers were reported injured and it is not yet known if anyone was killed.

 “The bombing of the factory leveled the last remaining economic infrastructure in Aleppo,” said al-Halabi, noting that all the factory’s warehouses, machinery and vehicles were destroyed.

The factory, which was privately owned and exported polyester to Europe, was previously bombed in 2013, sustaining only minor damage.