With a clamor of metal, great steel spiders weaved their webs. Inside the sheds of the El-Entabbi factory, the machines were running at full speed. "We've never stopped producing, even during the war. Many of Aleppo's weavers had to relocate to basements," recounted factory owner Hassan El-Entabbi, who inherited the family spinning mill founded in 1992 in Syria's economic capital.

Yet his company is almost an exception. Once the pride of the city and one of Syria's most productive sectors, Aleppo's textile industry is now a shadow of its former self. Located not far northeast of Aleppo, the town of Sheikh Najjar reflects the slow decline of the Syrian economy. Built in the early 2000s by Bashar al-Assad's regime, this vast industrial zone was supposed to house the country's flagship companies. Now, it is only a string of warehouses with blown-out windows and tin roofs.

"The war ended the textile nahda," or renaissance, said El-Entabbi, somewhat wistfully. Of the sector's more than 60,000 companies listed by the Aleppo Chamber of Commerce, only 10% are still active. Half of Sheikh Najjar's factories have closed down or been damaged by fighting between the regime army and rebel groups. "We've been hit by rockets fired by both sides," said the director.

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