AP, Damascus
Syrian government forces backed by Russian airstrikes drove Islamic State fighters from Palmyra on Sunday, ending the group’s reign of terror over a town whose famed 2,000-year-old ruins once drew tens of thousands of visitors each year.
Government forces had been on the offensive for nearly three weeks to try to retake the central town, known among Syrians as the “Bride of the Desert,” which fell to the extremists last May. Their advance marks the latest in a series of setbacks for IS, which has come under mounting pressure on several fronts in Iraq and Syria in recent months.
Gen. Ali Mayhoub announced on state TV that that the fall of Palmyra “directs a fatal blow to the ISIL, undermines the morale of its mercenaries, and ushers in the start of its defeat and retreat.” He said it lays the ground for further advances toward Raqqa, the IS group’s de facto capital, and Deir el-Zour, an eastern city it largely controls.
Troops in Palmyra are now dismantling explosive booby traps planted by IS, the station reported. State TV and a Britain-based monitoring group later reported that troops captured a military base to the east.
The advance marks a strategic and symbolic victory for the government, which has sought to portray itself as a bulwark against terrorism. The town was an important juncture on an IS supply line connecting its territory in central and northern Syria to the Anbar province in Iraq, where the group also holds territory.
IS drove government forces from Palmyra in a matter of days last May and later demolished some of the best-known monuments in its UNESCO world heritage site, including two large temples dating back more than 1,800 years and a Roman triumphal archway. The extremists have destroyed a number of historical sites across their self-declared caliphate, viewing such ruins as monuments to idolatry.
IS also demolished Palmyra’s infamous Tadmur prison, where thousands of government opponents were reportedly tortured.
Syrian state TV hailed the government’s advance, and a local reporter spoke live from inside Palmyra, showing troops in the center of the town. Some of the nearby buildings had been reduced to rubble.