The Islamic State group killed three captives in Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra by tying them to Roman-era columns and then blowing the structures up, activists said Tuesday.
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The New York Post sources this particular report to an activist in Palmyra who goes by the name Nasser al-Thaer. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights relies on activists inside Syria to document human rights violations in the country. And they don’t stop there, destroying everything in their path. This time, in Palmyra, three people were tied and executed after ISIS detonated the pillars in the ancient section of the city.
IS also has continued with the destruction of many antiquities in Palmyra claiming the sties and the statues only promote idolatry.
The jihadi group also beheaded Palmyra’s 82-year-old former antiquities director in August.
No one was injured in the shooting and the Kurdish forces did not return fire. We hit it twice.
Turkish authorities have repeatedly expressed concerns about the Kurdish forces advancing on the Syrian side of its 900 km (560-mile) border, which will, according to Turkish government fuel separatist ambitions among Turkey’s own Kurds, southeastern the country.
Turkey has reportedly been critical of USA support for YPG fighters in Syria, fearing the potential for an autonomous Kurdish entity in northern Syria, which could spur on Kurdish nationalists in Turkey.
In a TV interview late on Monday, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that Turkey had warned the PYD not to cross to the “west of the Euphrates and that we would hit it the moment it did”.
The PYD role supporting the US-led coalition’s battle against Islamic State does not give the group legitimacy, Erdogan said in remarks broadcast live from Brussels.
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The attacks provide fresh evidence of the complications the USA and its allies face when forming a strategy against the extremist ISIS terrorist group, in an area where regional and sectarian conflicts continue to play out.
