Mostar Bridge
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Stari Most (Serbo-Croatian: Stari most, Стари мост, lit. ’Old Bridge’), also known as Mostar Bridge, is a rebuilt 16th-century Ottoman bridge in the city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina that crosses the river Neretva and connects the two parts of the city. On 9 November 1993 Stari Most collapsed due to shelling by the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) during the Croat–Bosniak War. Subsequently, a project was set in motion to reconstruct it; the rebuilt bridge opened on 23 July 2004. In 2017, the appeal court deemed that destruction was legal since the bridge was a military target as the opposing Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina used it as a military supply line.
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The Old bridge is considered an exemplary piece of Balkan Islamic architecture. It was commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1557, and designed by Mimar Hayruddin, a student and apprentice of the architect Mimar Sinan.