Syrian government forces backed by heavy Russian air support yesterday drove the Islamic State out of Palmyra, inflicting what the army called a “mortal blow” to militants who seized the city last year and destroyed its ancient temples.
The loss of Palmyra represents one of the biggest setbacks for the Muslim extremist group since it declared a “caliphate” in 2014 across large parts of Syria and Iraq.
The Syrian army general command said that its forces took over the city with support from Russian and Syrian airstrikes, opening up the huge expanse of desert leading east to the Islamic State strongholds of al-Raqqah and Deir ez-Zor.
Photo: AP
Palmyra is to become “a launchpad to expand military operations” against the group in those two provinces, it said, promising to “tighten the noose on the terrorist group and cut supply routes ... ahead of their complete recapture.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were still clashes on the eastern edge of Palmyra yesterday morning, around the prison and inside the airport, but the bulk of the Islamic State’s forces had withdrawn and retreated east, leaving the city under Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s control.
Amaq, a news agency close to the Islamic State, said its fighters launched a twin suicide attack against government forces in west Palmyra, without giving details.
Syrian state-run TV broadcast from inside the city yesterday morning, showing largely deserted streets and several badly damaged buildings.
It quoted a military source saying Syrian and Russian jets were targeting Islamic State fighters as they fled, hitting dozens of vehicles on the roads leading east from the city.
Russia’s intervention in September last year turned the tide of Syria’s five-year conflict in al-Assad’s favor.
Despite its declared withdrawal of most military forces two weeks ago, Russian jets and helicopters carried out dozens of strikes daily over Palmyra as the Syrian army pushed into the city.
“This achievement represents a mortal blow to the terrorist organization and lays the foundation for a great collapse in the morale of its mercenaries and the beginning of its defeat,” the army command statement said.
In a pointed message to the US, which has led a separate Western and Arab coalition against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq since 2014, the military command said its gains showed that the army “and its friends” were the only force able to uproot terrorism.
Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman said 400 Islamic State fighters died in the battle for Palmyra, which he described as the biggest single defeat for the group since it announced its cross-border caliphate nearly two years ago.
The loss of Palmyra comes three months after Islamic State fighters were driven out of the city of Ramadi in neighboring Iraq, the first major victory for Iraq’s army since it collapsed in the face of an assault by the militants in June 2014.
The Islamic State has lost ground elsewhere, including the Iraqi city of Tikrit last year and the Syrian town of al-Shadadi last month.
The US said the fall of al-Shadadi was part of efforts to cut the Islamic State’s links between its two main power centers of Mosul in Iraq and al-Raqqah in Syria.
The observatory said about 180 government soldiers and allied fighters were killed in the campaign to retake Palmyra, which is home to some of the most extensive ruins of the Roman Empire.
Islamic State militants destroyed several monuments last year, and Syrian TV yesterday broadcast footage from inside Palmyra museum showing toppled and damaged statues, as well as several smashed display cases.
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