IS seizes northern part of Syria's Palmyra: monitor

BEIRUT, May 16, (AFP/Reuters) - Jihadists from the Islamic State group seized control today of the northern part of Syria's ancient desert city of Palmyra after fierce clashes with government forces, a monitoring group said.

In Iraq, meanwhile, Islamic State militants withdrew from the main government building in the Iraqi city of Ramadi today, the mayor and a tribal leader said, a day after the jihadist group raised its black flag over the building in the western provincial capital.

Air strikes by a U.S.-led coalition forced the militants to retreat, leaving the buildings booby trapped or on fire, the officials said. Their reports could not be confirmed independently.

Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said: “IS advanced and took control of most of northern Palmyra, and there are fierce clashes happening now.”

He said 13 jihadist fighters were killed in ongoing clashes near the Islamic citadel in the city's west.

Abdel Rahman had no details on regime casualties.

Most of Palmyra's renowned ruins, including colonnaded streets and elaborately decorated tombs, lie to the southwest of the city.

The official Syrian news agency SANA quoted a miliary source as saying that regime forces had prevented IS fighters from seizing a hilltop southwest of the Islamic citadel.The head of Syria's antiquities department, Mamoum Abdulkarim, meanwhile voice concern for the ancient site.“I am living in a state of terror,” Abdulkarim told AFP in a telephone call.

He said IS “will blow everything up. They will destroy everything,” if the enter the site, adding that many of Palmyra's artefacts, like elaborate tombs, could not be moved.

“If they enter the ancient ruins, it will be worse than when Palmyra was defeated in the time of Zenobia,” said Abdulkarim.

Zenobia ruled over Palmyra -- a UNESCO world heritage site -- as queen in the third century, but was dramatically defeated by the Romans.