BEIRUT (AP) — One of the darkest moments in the modern history of the Arab world happened more than four decades ago, when then-Syrian President Hafez Assad launched what came to be known as the Hama Massacre.
From 10,000 to 40,000 people were killed or disappeared in the government attack on the central Syrian city that began on Feb. 2, 1982, and lasted for nearly a month, turning it to ruins.
The memory of the government assault and the monthlong siege on the city, which at the time was a stronghold of Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood, remains visceral in Syrian and Arab minds.
Now Islamist insurgents have captured the city, tearing down a
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