This time it is the ancient oasis city of Palmyra in Syria, a UNESCO World Heritage Site dating back 2,000 years.
ISIS took "full control" of Palmyra Thursday after Syrian government forces retreated, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors fighting in Syria.
"ISIS has taken the prison in Palmyra, the intelligence HQ, everything ... everything," executive director Rami Abdurrahman told CNN by phone.
The Sunni jihadists stormed Tadmur, a modern city just a few hundred meters from the ruined temples and colonnades of Palmyra on Wednesday and advanced early Thursday.
At least 100 regime troops were killed overnight fighting ISIS, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
ISIS militants were going door-to-door looking for Syrian regime soldiers Thursday, one Palmyra resident who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution told CNN.
"They (ISIS) are everywhere," another resident told CNN, adding that militants have put the city on curfew.
The takeover by ISIS militants can only add to fears that the group will destroy Palmyra, just as it bulldozed the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud and took sledgehammers to statues in Mosul Museum.
Syrian director of antiquities Maamoun Abdul Karim told AFP last week: "If ISIS enters Palmyra, it will spell its destruction.".................http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/15/middleeast/syria-palmyra-isis/index.html
21/5/15
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Will Palmyra Be the Turning Point in Syria?...
ReplyDeleteIslamic State has just taken the city of Palmyra in Syria, putting at risk its magnificent ruins and raising two questions: Why did the government and its military not fight harder to hold the town and its oil fields? And will the Islamist radicals now engage in an orgy of cultural destruction, as they have done in Iraq?..........http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-05-21/could-palmyra-be-a-turning-point-for-syria-
21/5/15
Palmyra artifacts are safe, despite ISIS museum break-in, Syrian official says...
ReplyDeleteIslamic State fighters broke into the museum of the ancient town of Palmyra, though its artifacts have been removed and are safe, a Syrian official said Saturday.
The Islamic State group captured Palmyra in the central province of Homs on Wednesday, raising concerns around the world they would destroy priceless, 2,000-year-old temples, tombs and colonnades located in the town's south. A picture circulated on Twitter accounts of supporters of the group show the black flag used by the extremists raised over the town's hilltop castle, a structure hundreds of years old.
Maamoun Abdulkarim, the head of the Antiquities and Museums Department in Damascus, told The Associated Press that militants entered the museum in the town's centre Friday afternoon, locked the doors and left behind their own guards. He said that the artifacts earlier had been moved away to safety.....AP......ctvnews.ca
23/5/15