Groups of heavily armed soldiers were shown coordinating sniper attacks, using robotic tanks and inspecting rebel corpses. Russian Federation has given the Islamic State a chance to recapture Palmyra as it was focused on fighting against the armed groups of the moderate Syrian opposition in Aleppo, French Foreign Minister Jean Marc Ayrault assumed before the European Union foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels.
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Abdulkarim said the vast majority of the artefacts that were in Palmyra had already been moved to Damascus for safekeeping, a prescient move that may help preserve something of the city’s heritage, one of the few aspects that unite many Syrians after almost six years of civil war.
Palmyra was taken over by IS previous year and the militants spent 10 months in control, blowing up temples and other historic objects.
Effectively, with manpower utterly disproportionate between the warring parties, local SAA commanders had to choose between a full-scale tactical retreat or leaving outnumbered government troops to be slaughtered by the rapidly advancing jihadist militants.
Townsend said he expects that as Syrian forces get closer to surrounding and isolating Raqqa, there will be a pause in operations in order to develop plans for seizing and liberating the city.
Its loss to ISIS may make any attempt to recapture Palmyra significantly more hard.
“I’m not really exactly sure. what they’ve seized there”.
Islamic State militants and Syria’s Russian-backed army have been fighting over the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, with both sides claiming the upper hand.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that Isis terrorists had reached palmyra’s hospital and its strategically located wheat silos.
Russian Federation had earlier said that it helped Syrian troops repel an attack on the town by launching more than 60 airstrikes.
According to media reports, around 50 Syrian troops have been killed in the battle, while an unconfirmed report says that the rest of them are fleeing the city.
The Islamic State has retaken the ancient Syrian town of Palmyra after being forced out in March.
“The attacking militants actively used auto bombs with suicide bombers, armored vehicles and rocket artillery”, it said, adding that the strikes killed more than 300 militants and destroyed 11 tanks and 31 vehicles.
Palmyra is home to towering 2,000-year-old ruins and was a major tourist attraction before the civil war broke out in 2011.
A view of equipment in a Russian base in what is said to be Palmyra, Syria in this still image taken from video uploaded to social media on December 13, 2016. However, on Sunday, the militants fought their way into the town.
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The group’s propaganda claimed fighters had captured areas including Huwaysis, Shair, Jazal and Jahar, killing around 200 Syrian army and militia members and capturing several more.
