ISIS seizes full control of Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra

Middle East, News May 21, 2015 , by IRIA No Comments

Islamic State (ISIS) militants in Syria have entered the Unesco World Heritage site of Palmyra after seizing the town next to the ancient ruins, reports say.

Unesco says its destruction would be “an enormous loss to humanity”, but no damage has been reported there yet.

ISIS now controls the nearby airport, prison and intelligence HQ, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.

The militants have previously demolished ancient sites in Iraq that pre-date Islam.

It is the first time ISIS has taken a city directly from from forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and his army.

Now there are fears ISIS may destroy Palmyra’s Roman ruins and temples. The group caused uproar over its destruction of ancient sites and relics in Iraq.

Palmyra’s 2,000-year-old monuments were put on UNESCO’s World Heritage in danger list in 2013.

The EU’s foreign policy chief has expressed fears that thousands of people living in the city are now at risk as well as the cultural sites.

“Mass killings and deliberate destruction of archaeological and cultural heritage in Syria and Iraq amount to a war crime,” Federica Mogherini said in a statement.

ISIS militants destroying artifacts in Iraq’s UNESCO World Heritage city of Hatra

The city is a strategic win for ISIS because it’s located on a highway linking government-held Damascus and Homs with the country’s mainly rebel-held east.

British-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says ISIS now controls more than half of Syrian territory.

Although the group has seized huge tracts of land in Syria, the areas it holds are mostly sparsely populated.

AJ/BBC/EN