Syria again reclaims historic town from ISIS

BEIRUT — Syria’s military announced on Thursday it has fully recaptured the historic town of Palmyra from the Islamic State group as the militants’ defenses crumbled and ISIS fighters fled in the face of artillery fire and intense Russia-backed airstrikes.

The development marks the third time that the town — famed for its priceless Roman ruins and archaeological treasures ISIS had sought to destroy — has changed hands in one year.

It was also the second blow for the Islamic State group in Syria in a week, after Turkish-backed opposition fighters seized the Syrian town of al-Bab from the militants Feb. 23, following a grueling three-month battle. In neighboring Iraq, the Sunni extremist group is fighting for survival in its last urban bastion in the western part of Mosul.

For the Syrian government, the news was a welcome development against the backdrop of peace talks underway with the opposition in Switzerland.

“You are all invited to visit the historic city of Palmyra and witness its beauty, now that it has been liberated,” the Damascus envoy to the U.N.-mediated talks, Bashar al-Ja’afari, told reporters in Geneva.

The Damascus military statement said troops gained full control of Palymyra following a series of military operations carried out with the help of Russian air cover and in cooperation with “allied and friendly troops” — government shorthand for members of the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group who are fighting along Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.

In Turkey, the country’s foreign minister said that with the completion of an operation to retake al-Bab, Turkish troops will head to the Syrian town of Manbij next, to oust U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces that Ankara views as terrorists and a threat to Turkey.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Thursday renewed calls for the new U.S. administration not to support the Kurdish forces.