During the 20th century , an Islamic uprising in Syria occurred with sectarian religious overtones between the Alawite-dominated Assad government and the Islamist Sunni Muslim Brotherhood , culminating with the 1982 Hama massacre . An estimated 10,000 to 40,000 Syrians , mostly civilians , were killed by Syrian military in the city . During the uprising , the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood attacked military cadets at an artillery school in Aleppo , performed car bomb attacks in Damascus , as well as bomb attacks against the government and its officials , including Hafez al-Assad himself , and had killed several hundred
attacked military cadets
Aleppo Artillery School massacre
Shia–Sunni relations