Aleppo: Syria's sleeping giant stirs

As the uprising enters its fourth month, Syria's second city is becoming increasingly unsettled.

The streets in towns and cities across Syria have been filled with demonstrators every Friday since mid-March

On the surface, all seems calm in Syria's second city.

Traffic and tourists might not be bustling along Aleppo's ancient thoroughfares in the abundance they once did, but to a casual observer there appears little sign that the turmoil of Syria's four-month old uprising has made much of an impact on its largest city.

But talk to shopkeepers, hotel managers and traders in Aleppo's famous covered souk and one soon finds grumblings of dissent.

For in the Syrian capital of commerce, no one is making money anymore, threatening to undermine the key pillar of a long established pact between Aleppo's Sunni merchant class and the imposed stability of the Alawite-led regime.
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