Syrian army 'in full control' of Palmyra after heavy fighting
#SyriaWar
Islamic State militants forced to retreat from ancient city after hundreds of fighters killed in Russian-backed offensive, according to monitors
Pro-government fighters pose in front of Palmyra's main citadel on Saturday (AFP)
MEE and agencies
Sunday 27 March 2016 08:17 UTC
Last update:
Sunday 27 March 2016 11:09 UTC
Syrian troops backed by Russian forces recaptured the landmark city of Palmyra from the Islamic State (IS) group on Sunday, according to Syrian state media and Syrian army sources.
Army sappers were defusing mines and bombs planted by IS in the city's ancient ruins, a UNESCO world heritage site where IS militants sparked a global outcry with the systematic destruction of treasured monuments.
"After heavy fighting during the night, the army is in full control of Palmyra - both the ancient site and the residential neighbourhoods," a military source told AFP.
In a televised statement on Sunday, the head of the Syrian armed forces said victory in Palmyra would help pro-government forces "tighten the noose" around IS, particularly in Deir Ezzor and Raqqa, the northern town that the group has taken as its de facto capital in Syria.
Local opposition activists said early on Sunday morning that IS were still in control of several suburbs of the city, despite a heavy Russian bombing campaign that has seen hundreds of sorties over the city in the past week.
However, Syrian army sources later said that IS fighters had pulled out, retreating towards the towns of Sukhnah and Deir Ezzor to the east.
Footage circulated by pro-government sites on Sunday showed fierce fighting involving tanks and artillery in residential areas of the modern city, which is also known as Tadmor.
IS overran the Palmyra ruins and adjacent modern city in May 2015.
It has since blown up two of the site's treasured temples, its triumphal arch and a dozen tower tombs, in a campaign of destruction that UNESCO described as a war crime punishable by the International Criminal Court.
UNESCO chief Irina Bokova this week praised what she called the "liberation" of Palmyra by Syrian pro-government forces, pledging to cooperate with Syrian officials to send experts to assess damage to the ruins as soon as the security situation allows.
IS used Palmyra's ancient amphitheatre as a venue for public executions, including the beheading of the city's 82-year-old former antiquities chief.
The oasis city's recapture is a strategic as well as symbolic victory for President Bashar al-Assad, since it provides control of the surrounding desert extending all the way to the Iraqi border.
IS, behind a string of attacks in the West including last week's Brussels bombings, is under growing pressure from Syrian and Iraqi military offensives to retake key bastions in its self-proclaimed "caliphate".
On Thursday, the Iraqi army announced the launch of an offensive to recapture second city Mosul, held by IS since June 2014.
'Heaviest losses' for IS
IS lost at least 400 fighters in the battle for Palmyra, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group.
"That's the heaviest losses that IS has sustained in a single battle since its creation" in 2013, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
"It is a symbolic defeat for IS comparable with that in Kobane," a town on the Turkish border where Kurdish fighters held out against a months-long siege by IS in 2014-15, he added.
Russian forces, which intervened in support of longtime ally Assad last September, have been heavily involved in the offensive to retake Palmyra despite a major drawdown last week.
Russian warplanes conducted more than 40 combat sorties in just 24 hours from Friday to Saturday, targeting "158 terrorist" positions, according to the Russian defence ministry.
Elsewhere in Syria, a ceasefire in areas held by the government and opposition rebels has largely held since 27 February, in a boost to diplomatic efforts to end a five-year war that has killed more than 270,000 people.
The recapture of Palmyra sets government forces up for a drive on IS's de facto Syrian capital of Raqa in the Euphrates valley to the north.
"The army will have regained confidence and morale, and will have prepared itself for the next expected battle in Raqa," a military source said on Saturday.
With the road linking Palmyra to Raqa now under army control, IS fighters in the ancient city can only retreat eastwards towards the Iraqi border.
Palmyra was a major centre of the ancient world as it lay on the caravan route linking the Roman Empire with Persia and the east.
Pledging Russian support for the offensive to retake the city earlier this month, President Vladimir Putin described it as a "pearl of world civilisation".
Situated about 210 kilometres (130 miles) northeast of Damascus, it drew some 150,000 tourists a year before it became engulfed by Syria's devastating civil war.
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