WAR AGAINST TERROR: Syrian troops take back ancient city of Palmyra from ISIS

The government forces backed by Russian air strikes drove out Daesh fighters, who have 

held the town since May last year.

It marks a strategic victory for the government as it puts them in a better place for a future 

advance on Raqqa, Daesh’s ‘capital’.

Opposition monitoring group Syrian Observatory Human Rights confirmed that Daesh had 

lost the town and said more than 400 Daesh fighters were killed in the three-week battle.

Last May, Daesh forced out government forces from Palmyra and demolished some of the 

best-known monuments in the Unesco world heritage site.

Extremists see monuments as a promotion of idolatry which is forbidden in Islam.

Addressing Daesh, Maamoun Abdulkarim, director of the government’s museums and 

antiquities department in Damascus, said: ‘We will rebuild what you have destroyed.’

SOURCE: METRO UK