Tag Archives: Palmyra

Syrian army to enter Islamic State-held Palmyra ‘very soon’: source

FILE PHOTO: Syrian army soldiers stand on the ruins of the Temple of Bel in the historic city of Palmyra, in Homs Governorate, Syria April 1, 2016. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki/File Photo

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Russian-backed Syrian government forces will enter the Islamic State-held city of Palmyra “very soon”, a Syrian military source said on Wednesday, as government forces seek to win back the city from the group for the second time in a year.

The army said on Wednesday it had captured an area known as the “Palmyra triangle” a few kilometers (miles) west of the city.

Backed by Russian air strikes, the Syrian army has advanced to the outskirts of Palmyra in the last few days. “The army’s entry to the city will begin very soon,” the military source told Reuters.

The Syrian government lost control of Palmyra to Islamic State in December, having first recaptured it with Russian air support last March. The group has razed ancient monuments during both of its spells in control of the UNESCO World Heritage Site – destruction the United Nations has condemned as a war crime.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organization that reports on the war, said government forces were expected to storm Palmyra at “any moment”. Russia has said its aircraft are supporting the army offensive in Palmyra.

Photos published on an Islamic State Telegram account on Wednesday showed the group’s fighters firing at the Syrian army with rockets and a tank. Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the photos.

Islamic State first captured Palmyra from the government in 2015. During its first period in control of the site, the jihadists destroyed monuments including a 1,800-year-old monumental arch.

Most recently, Islamic State has razed the landmark Tetrapylon and the facade of Palmyra’s Roman Theater. Palmyra, known in Arabic as Tadmur, stood at the crossroads of the ancient world.

The government and its allies lost Palmyra as they focused on defeating Syrian rebel groups in eastern Aleppo. The rebel groups were driven from eastern Aleppo in December, the government’s biggest victory of the war.

(Reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut and Andrew Osborn in Moscow and Ali Abdelaty in Cairo; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Islamic State destroys famous monument in Syria’s Palmyra: antiquities chief

file photo of Roman theatre destroyed by Islamic State

By Kinda Makieh and Tom Perry

DAMASCUS/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Islamic State militants have destroyed one of the most famous monuments in the ancient city of Palmyra, the Tetrapylon, and the facade of its Roman Theatre, Syrian antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim told Reuters on Friday.

The Syrian government lost control of Palmyra to Islamic State in December, the second time the jihadist group had overrun the UNESCO world heritage site in the six-year-long Syrian conflict.

UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova said in a statement that the destruction constituted “a new war crime and an immense loss for the Syrian people and for humanity”.

The Tetrapylon, marking a slight bend along Palmyra’s grand colonnade, comprises a square stone platform with matching structures of four columns positioned at each of its corners.

Satellite imagery sent by Abdulkarim to Reuters showed it largely destroyed, with only four of 16 columns still standing and the stone platform apparently covered in rubble.

The imagery also showed extensive damage at the Roman Theatre, with several towering stone structures destroyed on the stage. Just last May, a famous Russian orchestra performed at the theater after Palmyra was first won back from Islamic State.

Abdulkarim said if Islamic State remained in control of Palmyra “it means more destruction”. He said the destruction took place sometime between Dec. 26 and Jan. 10, according to the satellite imagery of the site.

Islamic State had previously captured Palmyra in 2015. It held the city for 10 months until Syrian government forces backed by allied militia and Russian air power managed to drive them out last March.

During its previous spell in control of Palmyra, Islamic State destroyed other monuments there, including its 1,800-year-old monumental arch. Palmyra, known in Arabic as Tadmur, stood at the crossroads of the ancient world.

Islamic State put 12 people to death in Palmyra earlier this week, some of them execution-style in the Roman Theatre.

Russia marked the capture of Palmyra from Islamic State by sending the Mariinsky Theatre to perform a surprise concert, highlighting the Kremlin’s role in winning back the city.

The concert, held just over a month after Russian air strikes helped push Islamic State militants out of Palmyra, saw Valery Gergiev, a close associate of President Vladimir Putin, conduct the Mariinsky orchestra.

Islamic State swept into Palmyra again in December when the Syrian army and its allies were focused on dealing a final blow to rebels in the city of Aleppo. Eastern Aleppo fell to the government later that month.

(Reporting by Kinda Makieh in Damascus and Tom Perry in Beirut; Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris; Editing by Larry King)

U.S. may target weapons seized by Islamic State in Palmyra

Islamic State fighters search weapon boxes in a Russian base in what is said to be Palmyra,

By Phil Stewart and David Alexander

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The head of U.S. forces fighting Islamic State said on Wednesday the United States may target weapons seized by the group when it captured the Syrian city of Palmyra, adding the equipment posed a danger to the U.S.-led coalition in the region.

Army Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend told a Pentagon video briefing that the weapons seized by Islamic State likely included armored vehicles, guns and possibly air defense equipment or other heavy weaponry.

He hoped Russia or Syria would quickly retake Palmyra and neutralize the threat, but cautioned the United States would stand ready to strike if needed, including if the looted weapons started moving out of the city.

“Basically anything they seized poses a threat to the coalition but we can manage those threats and we will,” Townsend said. “I anticipate that we’ll have opportunities to strike that equipment and kill the ISIL that’s operating it soon.”

Still, he cautioned that Russia or Syria would have a far better sense of who was on the ground and would be in a better position to react quickly.

“We can’t tell one side from the other. So we can’t tell if the truck and the armored vehicle is being operated by a regime trooper, a Russian trooper or ISIL fighter,” he said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

Islamic State recaptured the ancient city of Palmyra on Sunday despite dozens of Russian air strikes to push back the militants, exposing the limitations of the Russian backing that has turned the tide of the conflict in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s favor.

The focus of Syria’s overstretched army on defeating insurgents in their last urban stronghold of Aleppo may have diverted resources needed to defend the city, where Moscow in recent months beefed up its defenses.

Palmyra, with its Roman-era city and spectacular ruins, had been recaptured from the militants last March, in what was hailed as a major victory for the government and the biggest reversal for Islamic State in Syria since Russia’s intervention.

‘FLEETING VICTORY’

“(They) took their eye off the ball there, the enemy sensed weakness and struck and gained a victory that I think will probably be fleeting,” Townsend said.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that if it were true the militants seized an anti-aircraft missile system, the threat from Islamic State “is worse because of the failed strategy of the Syrians and the Russians.”

By taking full control of Aleppo, Assad has proved the power of his military coalition and dealt a crushing blow to rebel hopes of ousting Assad after revolting against him during the 2011 Arab uprisings.

Rebels have been supported by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, but the support they have enjoyed has fallen far short of the direct military backing given to Assad by Russia and Iran.

Townsend said he expected rebels who lost Aleppo would take their fight elsewhere in Syria but that it was unlikely to significantly affect the U.S.-backed effort against Islamic State – including a bid to capture the group’s stronghold of Raqqa, Syria.

“Our estimate is they’ll probably go somewhere else that is more important to them, and I won’t care to comment on where we think that might be,” he said.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and David Alexander; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Syrian forces pursue campaign against Islamic State after retaking Palmyra

Mideast Crisis Syria

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian government forces backed by Russian air strikes battled Islamic State insurgents around Palmyra on Monday, trying to extend their gains after taking back control of a city whose ancient temples were dynamited by the ultra-radical militants.

The loss of Palmyra on Sunday is one of the biggest setbacks for the jihadist group since it declared a caliphate in 2014 across large parts of Syria and Iraq. It is also a major victory for President Bashar al-Assad and ally Russia, casting them as critical to the international fight against Islamic State.

The Syrian army said the city, home to some of the most extensive ruins of the Roman Empire, would become a “launchpad” for operations against Islamic State strongholds in Raqqa and Deir al-Zor, further east across a vast expanse of desert.

Syrian state media said on Monday Palmyra’s military airport was now open to air traffic after the army cleared the surrounding area of Islamic State fighters.

“Now there is a convergence of interests worldwide about the fact that ISIS (Islamic State) really needs to be confronted. It is a strategic defeat for ISIS and by default a strategic victory for Assad and Putin,” said Fawaz Gerges, a Middle East expert at the London School of Economics. “It feeds into Assad’s narrative about Syria being a bulwark against Islamic State.”

Clashes continued northeast of Palmyra between Islamic State and forces allied to the government, supported by Syrian and Russian air strikes, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based body which monitors the war.

Air strikes, believed to be Russian, also targeted the road running east out of Palmyra towards Deir al-Zor, and there was fighting around the Islamic State-held town of Qaryatain on Monday, 100 km (60 miles) west of Palmyra, the Observatory said. The Syrian government has been trying to retake Qaryatain since Islamic State seized it last August.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, speaking in Amman, said he was “encouraged” that Syrian government forces had been able to drive Islamic State out of Palmyra and that the city’s ancient heritage could now be preserved.

But the Syrian opposition said it feared Assad’s forces were using a fragile cessation of hostilities in the wider conflict to make territorial gains.

“I fear one thing: that the period of the truce will allow the Assad regime to gobble up what remains of Syria by liberating areas that are controlled by Daesh (Islamic State) and Nusra,” Riad Nassan Agha, a member of the opposition High Negotiations Committee, told Reuters by telephone.

The truce, accepted by Assad’s government and most of his foes, is the first of its kind since the war began five years ago and has been accompanied by the first peace talks attended by the warring sides. It does not apply to areas held by Islamic State or the Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of al Qaeda.

NEGOTIATING POSITION

The Syrian government is likely to use its success in Palmyra to bolster its negotiating position at the peace talks in Geneva, underlining that it is a necessary partner in the fight against Islamic State.

The United States is leading an international campaign of air strikes against Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq. It says it does not cooperate with Assad’s government, but reported carrying out air strikes around Palmyra at least once last week while Damascus was making its advance.

Bashar Ja’afari, the Syrian envoy to the Geneva talks, said in an interview with Lebanon-based al-Mayadeen TV that it was time for powers including Washington to join Moscow in working with Damascus.

“We are for the creation of an international coalition against terrorism, but in coordination with the Syrian government,” he said. “We have no objection to working with America as long as it is done in coordination with Syria.”

Russia’s intervention in September turned the tide of Syria’s five-year conflict in Assad’s favor. Despite Moscow’s declared withdrawal of most military forces two weeks ago, Russian jets and helicopters carried out dozens of strikes daily over Palmyra as the army thrust into the city.

Russia said it would assist with securing and removing landmines in Palmyra following the campaign, and the Kremlin said on Monday that the Russian air force would continue to help Syrian government forces.

But Russian forces are still showing signs of their partial withdrawal. Three heavy attack helicopters have left Moscow’s Hmeimim air base in Syria for Russia, Russian state TV channel Rossiya-24 reported on Monday.

ISLAMIC STATE DEFEATS

Although most of the Islamic State force fled Palmyra on Sunday, there were still some militants in the city, the Observatory said. Its director Rami Abdulrahman said most residents had fled before the government offensive and the observatory had not heard about any civilian deaths.

He said 417 Islamic State fighters were so far known to have died in the campaign to retake Palmyra, while 194 people were killed on the Syrian government side. The figures could not be independently verified.

Islamic State militants dynamited several monuments last year, and Syrian television broadcast footage from inside Palmyra museum on Sunday showing toppled and damaged statues, as well as several smashed display cases.

Syria’s antiquities chief said other ancient landmarks were still standing and pledged to restore the damaged monuments.

“Palmyra has been liberated. This is the end of the destruction in Palmyra,” Mamoun Abdelkarim told Reuters on Sunday. “How many times did we cry for Palmyra? How many times did we feel despair? But we did not lose hope.”

Islamic State’s ejection from Palmyra came three months after it was driven from Ramadi, a provincial capital in neighboring Iraq. Islamic State has also lost ground elsewhere, including the Iraqi city of Tikrit last year and the Syrian town of al-Shadadi in February, as its enemies try to cut links between its two main power centers, Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

On Friday the United States said it believed it had killed several senior Islamic State militants, including Abd ar-Rahman al-Qaduli, described as the group’s top finance official and aide to leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow; Editing by Nick Tattersall, Mark Heinrich and Peter Graff)

Syrian government forces enter Islamic State-held Palmyra

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian government forces fought their way into Palmyra on Thursday as the army backed by Russian air cover sought to recapture the historic city from Islamic State (IS) insurgents, Syrian state TV and a monitoring group said.

The Syrian army earlier this month launched a concerted offensive to retake Palmyra, which the ultra-hardline Islamist militants seized in May 2015, to open a road to the mostly IS-held eastern province of Deir al-Zor.

Islamic State has blown up ancient temples and tombs since capturing Palmyra, something the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO has called a war crime. The city, located at a crossroads in central Syria, is surrounded mostly by desert.

The state-run news channel Ikhbariya broadcast images from just outside Palmyra on Thursday and said government fighters had taken over a hotel district in the west.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army had advanced into the hotel district just to the southwest of the city and reached the start of a residential area, after a rapid advance the day before brought the army and its allies right up to its outskirts.

A soldier interviewed by Ikhbariya said the army and its allies would press forward beyond Palmyra.

“We say to those gunmen, we are advancing to Palmyra, and to what’s beyond Palmyra, and God willing to Raqqa, the center of the Daesh gangs,” he said, referring to Islamic State’s de facto capital in northern Syria.

The state news agency SANA showed warplanes flying overhead, helicopters firing missiles, and soldiers and armored vehicles approaching Palmyra.

Civilians began fleeing after Islamic State fighters told them via loudspeakers to leave the center as fighting drew closer, the Observatory said. The Observatory monitors the war using a network of sources on the ground.

The capture of Palmyra and advances further eastwards into Deir al-Zor would mark the most significant Syrian government gain against Islamic State since the start of Russia’s military intervention last September.

With Russia’s help, Damascus has already taken back some ground from IS, notably east of Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city and commercial hub before the war.

(Reporting by John Davison, Dominic Evans and Lisa Barrington; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Syria air strikes target Islamic State in ancient Palmyra

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Russian warplanes were said to have launched heavy strikes on the Islamic State-held city of Palmyra on Thursday in what may be a prelude to a Syrian government bid to recapture the historic site lost to the jihadist group last May.

Dozens of Islamic State fighters were killed or wounded in the strikes that followed similarly heavy air raids in the Palmyra area on Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported.

The attacks add to the pressure on a group that is losing ground to a separate, U.S.-backed campaign by Syrian militia in the northeast, and whose military commander was declared probably dead by U.S. officials on Tuesday.

The group’s tactics in Syria appear to reflect the strains, as it turns to suicide missions seemingly aimed at causing maximum casualties rather than sustainable territorial gains.

Islamic State is not included in a cessation of hostilities agreement that has brought about a lull in the war raging in western Syria between rebels aiming to topple President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian army backed by the Russian air force.

Military operations against Islamic State in central and eastern Syria are continuing as both Damascus and its allies on one hand, and the United States and its allies on the other, seek to degrade Islamic State’s self-declared “caliphate” that stretches into Iraq.

The Observatory said Russian war planes carried out 150 raids in the Palmyra area on Wednesday, followed by further attacks on Thursday. “If they take Tadmur (Palmyra) and Qarayatain, the regime would have taken back a big geographic area of Syria,” said Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman.

The loss of Qaraytain and Palmyra and the surrounding desert would reduce Islamic State’s hold to about 20 percent of Syria.

Qarayatain is 60 miles southwest of Palmyra. After capturing Palmyra, Islamic State blew up some of its ancient monuments in what the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO called a war crime.

Islamic State however appears well-entrenched in Palmyra, and while recovering the city would be a big boost for Damascus, its priority may be elsewhere for now, including the border with Turkey where it has been fighting rebels despite the truce.

FINANCES UNDER STRAIN

The momentum has turned against Islamic State since its rapid advances two years ago following the capture of the Iraqi city of Mosul. Its finances are also under strain, with fighters’ pay cut by up to a half.

In what would be another major blow to Islamic State, U.S. officials said on Tuesday that its “minister of war”, Abu Omar al-Shishani, was likely killed in a U.S. air strike near the town of al-Shadadi in northeastern Syria.

The militant, also known as Omar the Chechen, had a reputation as a close military adviser to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The Pentagon believes Shishani was sent to bolster Islamic State troops after they suffered setbacks at the hands of U.S.-allied militias including the Kurdish YPG.

The Observatory, which says it gathers its information from sources on all sides of the war, said on Thursday that Shishani was badly wounded but still alive and being treated somewhere in the group’s Syrian stronghold of Raqqa province.

Recent Islamic State attacks have included suicide car bombings in the government-held cities of Damascus and Homs, and a determined but ultimately unsuccessful effort to sever the government’s only land supply route to Aleppo.

Dozens of its fighters were also killed in a Feb. 27 attack on the YPG-held town of Tel Abyad at the Turkish border. A YPG official sent Reuters a list of the names of 72 IS fighters he said had been sent there on a suicide mission.

The official said Shishani’s death, if true, would not be that significant because Islamic State “is being broken by the YPG and Syria Democratic Forces with or without him”. “It doesn’t change the equation at all as far as we are concerned.”

(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy in Cairo; editing by Giles Elgood)

ISIS Destroys Ancient Temple

Islamic terrorist group ISIS has destroyed an ancient temple in the city of Palmyra, Syria in what the United Nations is calling a war crime.

The Temple of Baalshamin was destroyed on the heels of the terrorists killing Khaled al-Asssad.  The 82-year-old al-Asssad was an expert on Syrian antiquities and refused to tell the terrorists the locations of items they wanted to find.  Assad ran the antiquities department of Palmyra for 50 years.

Syria’s head of antiquities told the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights the terrorists blew up the temple on Sunday causing “much damage.”

“[ISIS] destroyed an incredibly important architectural structure,” Maamoun Abdulkarim said. “It is the first structure in the Palmyra complex to be destroyed, although they recently destroyed two Islamic shrines nearby.”

“They said they would destroy the statues but not the structures themselves inside Palmyra. They lied.”

The United Nations was swift to condemn the action.

“The systematic destruction of cultural symbols embodying Syrian cultural diversity reveals the true intent of such attacks, which is to deprive the Syrian people of its knowledge, its identity and history. One week after the killing of Professor Khaled al-Assaad, the archaeologist who had looked after Palmyra’s ruins for four decades, this destruction is a new war crime and an immense loss for the Syrian people and for humanity,” Unesco Director-General Irina Bokova said in a statement.

“The art and architecture of Palmyra, standing at the crossroads of several civilizations, is a symbol of the complexity and wealth of the Syrian identity and history. Extremists seek to destroy this diversity and richness, and I call on the international community to stand united against this persistent cultural cleansing. Daesh (ISIS) is killing people and destroying sites, but cannot silence history and will ultimately fail to erase this great culture from the memory of the world. Despite the obstacles and fanaticism, human creativity will prevail, buildings and sites will be rehabilitated, and some will be rebuilt,” Bokova continued.

“Such acts are war crimes and their perpetrators must be accountable for their actions. UNESCO stands by all Syrian people in their efforts to safeguard their heritage, a heritage for all humanity.”