DAMASCUS, Syrian Arab Republic. Syria’s president has hailed his forces’ recapture of the famed ancient city of Palmyra from Islamic State (IS)
Bashar al Assad said it was an “important achievement” and showed his army and his allies’ success in combating terrorism, while the military claimed IS was beginning to retreat and collapse.
Government troops and militiamen, backed by Russian airstrikes, have seized back full control of Palmyra which fell to IS in 2015.
It marks the biggest reversal for the extremist group since Moscow’s intervention last September in the five-year conflict.
Mr Assad was quoted as saying: “The liberation of the historic city of Palmyra today is an important achievement and another indication of the success of the strategy pursued by the Syrian army and its allies in the war against terrorism.”
Russian leader Vladimir Putin congratulated him on the phone.
Earlier, a military source said: “After heavy fighting during the night, the army is in full control of Palmyra – both the ancient site and the residential neighbourhoods.”
He added: “Army sappers are in the process of defusing dozens of bombs and mines planted inside the ancient site.”
State media and an opposition monitoring group also said Syrian forces had retaken the city, which is known as the “bride of the desert”.
It is home to Roman-era ruins and used to attract tens of thousands of tourists every year.
After taking Palmyra over last May, IS demolished some of the best-known monuments at the UNESCO world heritage site.
It blew up two of the site’s treasured classical temples, its triumphal arch and a dozen tower tombs.
IS used Palmyra’s ancient amphitheatre as a venue for public executions, including the beheading of the city’s 82-year-old former antiquities chief.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there was still gunfire in the eastern part of the city on Sunday morning.
But a large part of the IS force had pulled out and retreated east to the towns of Sukhnah, Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, leaving Palmyra under government control.
It also said the extremists had suffered around 400 deaths.
“That’s the heaviest losses that IS has sustained in a single battle since its creation” in 2013, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
He added: “It is a symbolic defeat for IS comparable with that in Kobane,” a town on the Turkish border where Kurdish fighters held out against a months-long siege by IS in 2014-15.
Government forces have been on the offensive for nearly three weeks to try to reclaim the city.
The recapture is a strategic as well as symbolic victory for Mr Assad, as analysts say it provides control of the surrounding desert extending all the way to the Iraqi border.
Russian forces have been heavily involved in the offensive to retake Palmyra.
Their jets carried out more than 40 combat sorties in just 24 hours from Friday to Saturday, targeting “158 terrorist” positions, according to the Russian defence ministry.
Credit: Sky News
