Syria's Aleppo province has long been the seat of intense fighting between Syrian rebels, some of whom the US back, and the Syrian regime backed by Russia.
Numerous reports of egregious bombings on hospitals and civilian areas by Syrian and Russian warplanes have come out of the area, where fighting has been the norm for much of Syria's 5-year-long civil war.
But on August 1, when the rebels and Syrian government forces were staging an especially hard battle, which resulted in a helicopter getting shot down and reports of chemical weapon use, the Syrian rebels took a dramatic step to try to halt the feverish pace of airstrikes on the besieged town — they took to the streets and burned tires.
Numerous videos have popped up on social media showing Syrians rolling out and setting tires ablaze. The thick black smoke rising off the tires can be seen stretching across the city, darkening the horizon and greatly decreasing visibility from the sky.
While burning tires is hardly a longterm air-defense strategy that any military commander would approve, it certainly could complicate Russian and Syrian bombing runs as they fly low and drop unguided munitions. With poor visibility, the planes would have no idea what, or who, they were bombing.
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https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/760615447683297280
Seriously Syrians are such sweet ppl, he's apologizing to environmentalists for burning tires but this their NFZ pic.twitter.com/9Z8wQXKyIg
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/759999278781722624
#Syria People of besieged eastern #Aleppo burning tires bc #Russia'n & regime airstrikeshttps://t.co/jVhU0vjnHl pic.twitter.com/6tpEs9q6Kg
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