[1] By separating Aleppo from Damascus, Gouraud wanted to capitalize on a traditional state of competition between the two cities and turn it into political division.

This population was mostly Arab but also included Kurds, especially in the eastern regions, and other diverse ethnicities who had relocated during the Ottoman period, most notably Circassians, Albanians, Bosnians, Bulgars, Turks, Kabardins, Chechens, and others.

Significant Shia Muslim populations lived in Aleppo too, in towns such as Nebbol, Fu'a, Az Zahra', Kefrayya and Maarrat Misrin.

Some of the prominent deputies were Subhi Barakat who later served as President of the Syrian Federation, Aleppo's mayor Ghaleb Bey Ibrahim Pasha, the head of the Chamber of Commerce Salim Janbarat, the lawyer Michel Janadri and Fakhir Al Jabiri, elder brother of nationalist leader Saadallah al-Jabiri.

Ibrahim Hananu was a native of Aleppo and a prominent member of the Syrian National Congress which was elected in 1919, and which refused the French mandate of Syria.

Supported by the Turkish nationalist leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Hananu started an armed insurgency against the French that lasted until he was arrested in 1921.

Hananu was tried in the same year in an Aleppo court, but he was found not guilty by the judges by three votes to two; probably the verdict was influenced by the crowds of supporters who gathered around the courthouse in that day.

Hananu moved to political opposition afterwards, and in 1926, he played a major role in preventing the secession of Aleppo from the State of Syria established in December 1924.