Syrian pro-government militia evacuated citizens from the ancient city of Palmyra yesterday after large groups of Islamic State militants infiltrated it, state television reported.
The evacuation by Syria's National Defence Forces follows heavy battles in and around the central city, which is home to a Unesco World Heritage site and is also a strategic military location linked by highways to the cities of Homs and Damascus. Meanwhile the Islamic State forces have also overrun the Iraqi city of Ramadi pushing thousands of Sunni people towards Baghdad.
The Islamic State militants took control of areas of the historic Syrian city of Palmyra from government forces in fierce fighting yesterday, and the Syrian antiquities chief called on the world to save its ancient heritage from the jihadists.
“The news at the moment is very bad,” Syria’s antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim told Reuters, adding, “There were very fierce clashes.”
Abdulkarim, who received Unesco’s Cultural Heritage Rescue Prize last year, said hundreds of statues had been moved to safe locations but called on the Syrian army, opposition and international community to save the site.
“The fear is for the museum and the large monuments that cannot be moved,” he said. “This is the entire world’s battle.”
City is home to 2000-year-old monuments
Islamic State has destroyed antiquities and ancient monuments in neighbouring Iraq and is being targeted by US-led air strikes in both countries. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said that al-Qaeda offshoot Islamic State had captured around a third of Palmyra.
Palmyra’s 2,000-year-old monuments, which lie on the south-western fringe of the modern city, were put on Unesco’s World Heritage in danger list in 2013. The ruins were part of a desert oasis that was one of the most significant cultural centres of the ancient world.
The attack is part of a westward advance by Islamic State that is adding to the pressures on President Bashar al-Assad’s overstretched military and allied militia that are also losing ground to insurgents in the northwest.
Displaced Sunni people from the cities of Palmyra and Ramadi, fleeing from the Islamic State militants yesterday.Syrian state TV said armed forces had confronted “the Islamic State terrorist group” when it tried to enter a northern Palmyra neighbourhood.
A video posted by an activist network on YouTube appeared to show black smoke rising into the sky. The caption dated May 20 said it was footage of air strikes on the city. A communications tower and a citadel could be seen in the video.
Islamic State supporters posted pictures on social media showing what they said were gunmen in the streets of Palmyra, which is the location of one of Syria’s biggest weapons depots as well as army bases, an airport and a major prison.
In Syria’s northeast, Kurdish forces backed by US-led air strikes are pressing an attack on Islamic State that has killed at least 170 members of the jihadist group this week, a Kurdish official said.
He added that Kurdish YPG fighters and allied militia had encircled Islamic State in a dozen villages near Tel Tamr in Hasaka province, which borders land controlled by Islamic State in neighbouring Iraq.