In 2010 I passed Aleppo on my way from Istanbul to Baghdad.
See this blog post.

One of the people I met in Aleppo was the gallery owner Isa Touma, a man with a healthy sense of humor and a certain amount of kinky cynicism that is probably needed to survive in the art world.
Anyhow, my evening with Mr. Touma was an impressive evening.

Recently Isa Touma contacted me via FB. He is still in Aleppo and he is blogging about living in Aleppo in times of war.
Read for example this story.

Of course I cannot check the authenticity of this story, I cannot be even sure that this is the Isa Touma I met back in 2010. But sometimes the suspension of paranoia is a reasonable step to take.