Qaryatain is near a road linking Palmyra to the Qalamoun mountains, along the border with Lebanon.
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A fifth-century Christian monastery in Qaryatain, Syria, was destroyed by the Islamic State, an Assyrian news agency reported Friday.
Militants used bulldozers to raze the monastery in the town of Qaryatain, a strategically-located town wrestled from government control by the jihadist group in early August, the Britain-based Observatory added. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from the militants.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said IS later released about 48 of its captives and transferred another 110 to Raqqa, the militants’ stronghold in Syria.
Speaking to the AP on Friday, Edward urged the worldwide community to use every means to protect Christians as well as ancient Christian sites in Syria.
The photos show parts of the monastery, dating back to the 5th century, reduced to rubble.
In May, Syrian priest Jacques Mourad was abducted from the site by masked men as he prepared to receive residents of nearby Palmyra, who were fleeing an IS advance.
Government warplanes were still pounding the area with air strikes two weeks after Islamic State took the town, the monitor said. Their fates remain unknown.
In addition to churches, it has destroyed Shia mosques and shrines, and the sites of ancient, pre-Islamic cities. Al-Asaad, a long-time site director, had refused to leave Palmyra after it was overrun by IS. Earlier this week, fighters in the IS-held town of Palmyra publicly beheaded an 81-year-old antiquities scholar who had dedicated his life to studying and overseeing the Palmyra’s iconic ancient ruins.
She added that the Islamic State group’s, “view on culture and heritage is just the opposite of what UNESCO stands for”.
Militants are seen bulldozing the historically-important site in the heartbreaking pictures.
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Palmyra has remained largely intact, but Bokova said “we know that some of the destruction is starting”. “If you look at the maps, the photos, the satellite pictures of it, you will not recognize one place”, she said.
