After helping retake Aleppo, Russia helps rebuild its mosque Standing outside Aleppo's Umayyad mosque, the city's mufti Mahmoud Akkam said he initially wanted the celebrated landmark to be restored by fellow Syrians. But when Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman chief of Russia's Chechnya region, offered to repair the damage that the ancient mosque sustained in ferocious clashes four years ago, Akkam felt he could not say no. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES