Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Islamci State Fightes Have Seized Parts Of The Ancient Syrian City of Palmyra



CBC: ISIS captures part of ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, home to UNESCO World Heritage Site

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

Fighters from the militant group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) seized around a third of the historic Syrian city of Palmyra on Wednesday after fierce clashes with the military and allied combatants, a group monitoring the war said.

The city, known as Tadmur in Arabic, is home to a UNESCO World Heritage site and the violence has fuelled fears Islamic State will destroy ancient ruins. The offshoot of al-Qaeda advanced into the city over the weekend but had been repelled.

Update #1: Islamic State captures one-third of ancient Syrian city: monitor -- Reuters
Update #2: IS Group Seizes Part of Ancient Town of Palmyra in Syria -- NYT/AP

WNU Editor: Apparently the statues have been removed .... Syrian antiquities chief says statues moved from Palmyra (Reuters) .... but I guess the ruins of the site will now be fair game to whatever the Islamic State wants to do.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Does ISIS have the time?

Beating the Iraqi army that appears to not have the support of the Iraqi government nor the Iranians is one thing.

Beating the Shia Militia is another. I have no idea of ISIS will defeat the 3,000 militia headed toward Ramadi. But I suspect they will bleed much more than when they took on the IA.

ISIS would be losing more men than they are currently if the Kurds, Iraqi government and Turks were not playing games and were cooperating.

The ISIS soldiers are willing to die, but if they start getting routed more than a few times, they won't be worth more than any other troop.

James said...

Aizino,
I don't think the militias are nearly as good as purported, I have a feeling they will take very high casualties and lose. As a matter of fact I wouldn't be surprised if this Shia column doesn't drive into a large ambush.