Libertarian candidate 'blanked' on Aleppo question, as presidential debate cutoff looms

If it was greater attention Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson wanted, he got it — but probably not the kind he wanted.

As part of a media blitz in New York to try to raise his polling numbers enough to qualify for the upcoming presidential debates, Johnson fielded a range of questions Thursday with the aim of demonstrating he can take on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

But one stumped him.

"What would you do about Aleppo?" Johnson was asked on MSNBC's Morning Joe, a question about Syria's largest city, which has been engulfed by the country's ongoing civil war.

"What is Aleppo?" Johnson responded.

Syria's 2011 pro-democracy uprising, which gradually devolved into civil war, has sparked a refugee crisis across the Middle East and Europe as millions fled their homes for safety.

When reminded of those facts by MSNBC on Thursday, Johnson said he'd work with Russia to find a diplomatic solution to the civil war and that the conflict was an example of the dangers of meddling in the region.

Johnson later acknowledged to another MSNBC reporter the attention to the error was deserved and apologized in a statement, saying he was thinking of an acronym, not the Syrian city.

"I blanked," he said. "It happens, and it will happen again during the course of this campaign."

He added, "Can I name every city in Syria? No. Should I have identified Aleppo? Yes. Do I understand its significance? Yes."

The error couldn't have come at a worse time for Johnson. He needs to average 15 per cent in a set of polls to qualify for the presidential debates, the first of which is Sept. 26. He picked up high-profile support Wednesday night when former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney tweeted that Johnson should be allowed in the debates.

Johnson seemed to recognize the peril of the Aleppo error. In a subsequent interview on ABC's The View, he said: "For those that believe this is a disqualifier, so be it."

Shared images of destruction

In the U.S., his comments sparked debate over the lack of foreign policy discussions in these presidential elections. But for many Syrians it was an opportunity to vent their frustration and bring the world's attention to one of Syria's oldest cities, and the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in the five-year civil war.

Using the hashtag, .WhatIsAleppo, Facebook and Twitter users shared stories of its ancient history and its modern woes. Some posted pictures of Aleppo's beautiful narrow streets and the 13th century citadel that towers over the city.

Others shared images of the destruction that has beset Aleppo, particularly its rebel-held neighbourhoods, which were recently described by one rebel fighter as "like walking into Hiroshima."

Many posted pictures of Aleppo's residents, such as the iconic image of five-year-old Omran Daqneesh, photographed sitting on an orange chair, covered in dust, his pale face smeared with blood following an airstrike.

The population of Syria's largest city has fallen from 3.1 million in 2011 to an estimated two million today, as families have fled four years of violence and hardship. Once Syria's commercial centre, large parts of Aleppo are under siege and food and basic necessities are often scarce, dependent on humanitarian aid convoys that arrive only after complex international negotiations. Aleppo's renowned textile factories have been destroyed.

Gas, barrel bomb attacks cited

The city's rich cultural and religious mix of Christians, Muslims, Armenians and Kurds has been torn apart by the conflict.

"If you are wondering .WhatISAleppo: More than 100 cases of suffocation in al-Sukkari neighbourhood, .Aleppo, in a chlorine gas .BarrelBombs attack," the Syrian Coalition, an exiled opposition group, tweeted. It referred to a suspected toxic gas attack by government helicopters on Tuesday that killed two people and left at least 80 with breathing problems. The government on Thursday denied using the toxic gas.

For Wissam Zarqa, a 34-year-old resident of rebel-held Aleppo, the city is the embodiment of the "will to live." He returned to his hometown from Saudi Arabia last year and gives English classes to children whose schools have long closed.

"There is something magical about the return of life to an area after a barrel bomb has just been dropped," he told The Associated Press via WhatsApp messages. "When I first returned to Aleppo 16 months ago, a missile hit the last floor of the building I live in. Half an hour later, the kids had finished cleaning the street outside the building."

Unsurprisingly when its neighbourhoods are physically separated by gunmen and sandbags, the people of Aleppo are divided over what their city is.

".WhatIsAleppo. It was an industrial hub of Syria until rebels invaded, looted her factories & smuggled them to Turkey," tweeted Bassem, a self-proclaimed secular Syrian with a large following on Twitter.

But not for the first time in its long history, Aleppo finds itself torn between international powers. Turkey is a main supporter of the city's rebel groups, and has sent its military to Aleppo province to fight Islamic State group extremists and rival Kurdish rebels. Russia and Iran are supporting the Syrian government's bid to gain control over the city.

The U.S. and Russia are locked in protracted negotiations over a ceasefire in the city, after a previous truce deal collapsed in Aleppo in April.