ihadists from the Islamic State group seized control Saturday of the northern part of Syria’s ancient desert city of Palmyra after fierce clashes with government forces, a monitoring group said.
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“IS advanced and took control of most of northern Palmyra, and there are fierce clashes happening now,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
He said 13 jihadist fighters were killed in ongoing clashes near the Islamic citadel in the city’s west.
Abdel Rahman had no details on regime casualties.
Most of Palmyra’s renowned ruins, including colonnaded streets and elaborately decorated tombs, lie to the southwest of the city.
The official Syrian news agency SANA quoted a military source as saying that regime forces had prevented IS fighters from seizing a hilltop southwest of the Islamic citadel.
Fearing a similar fate for Palmyra, known as Syria’s “pearl of the desert,” UNESCO has called on the UN Security Council to act in order to save one of the Middle East’s historic treasures.
The head of Syria’s antiquities department, Mamoum Abdulkarim, meanwhile voice concern for the ancient site.
“I am living in a state of terror,” Abdulkarim told AFP in a telephone call.
He said IS “will blow everything up. They will destroy everything,” if the enter the site, adding that many of Palmyra’s artefacts, like elaborate tombs, could not be moved.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/is-advances-on-ancient-palmyra-pearl-of-the-desert/Look at it's beauty while you can. Pictures will be all that is left by next week. Scum.
