Visited on a group tour to Syria in April 2023.

Perhaps the most famous castle of the Crusaders, built by the Order of Hospitallers to protect the pilgrims' routes to the Holy Land. The line of fortifications was so serious that even Saladin's troops could not take it by force.
Only in the Mamluk time Baybars managed to capture the castle by deception, when the power of the order was already in decline.
The castle was restored during the French mandate, but during the civil war Jihadists settled here, who had to be driven out of the castle with the help of Russian aircraft. The destroyed tower has already been restored by Hungarian historians, and only in the inner courtyard, at the foot of the dungeon, by tower of the Grand Master of the Hospitallers, is a gaping hole from a Russian bomb.
For the first time I saw a plaque with the UNESCO logo riddled with bullets.