Key Daesh leader dead in US air raid
Syrian troops recapture ancient Palmyra citadel
damascus — The Daesh group suffered a double setback on Friday as the Pentagon said the militants’ second-in-command was killed in a US raid and Syrian army troops recaptured the ancient citadel in Palmyra.
Pentagon chief Ashton Carter announced the killing of Abd ArRahman Mustafa Al Qaduli, described as Daesh’s second-in-command, in a US air raid in Syria.
“The removal of this... leader will hamper the ability for them to conduct operations inside and outside of Iraq and Syria,” Carter told reporters.
The fresh gains in Palmyra by Syrian troops backed by allied militia and Russia came a year after Daesh overran Unesco’s world heritage site.
“Our armed forces, in coordination with the popular defence forces, have taken control of the ancient Palmyra citadel after inflicting many losses in the ranks of the terrorist group Daesh,” Syrian state television said.
The group had taken over the citadel on May 23 last year and raised its flag over it. The group has since blown up Unesco-listed temples and looted relics that dated back thousands of years, and murdered former antiquities chief in Palmyra, Khaled Al Assaad.The regime advance came after US Secretary of State John Kerry and President Vladimir Putin agreed to intensify the drive for a political settlement in Syria. —
beirut — Syrian soldiers recaptured the old citadel of Palmyra overlooking the city’s ancient ruins on Friday, state media and a monitoring group said, in an offensive which could open up much of eastern Syria to government forces.
The recapture of Palmyra, which the militants seized in May 2015, would mark the biggest single gain for President Bashar Al Assad since Russia intervened in September and turned the tide of the five-year conflict in his favour.
Palmyra is the site of some of the most extensive ruins of the ancient Roman empire, and temples and tombs were dynamited by Daesh fighters in what the United Nations has described as a war crime.
The city controls routes east into the heartland of territory held by the militants.
The scale of Friday’s fighting reflected how much of a strategic prize the city represents, with jets launching dozens of air strikes and soldiers firing mortar barrages, while Daesh fighters hit back with two car bombings.
Beirut-based television channel Al Mayadeen, broadcasting from the edge of Palmyra, showed a lowflying jet carry out three air strikes against what it said were Daesh fighters withdrawing from the old citadel back into Palmyra.
State television and Al Manar, the television station of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, later quoted military sources saying government forces had seized the citadel, located above the ancient ruins.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the citadel had been captured. It said there were 56 air strikes between dawn and early afternoon on Friday.
A Russian special forces officer was killed in combat near Palmyra in the last week, Interfax said.
Daesh suicide bombers detonated two car bombs as they tried to repulse government forces who advanced into the hotel district close to the ancient ruins, said the Observatory. Soldiers interviewed on Mayadeen and Syrian television said that the army was completing the capture of high ground overlooking Palmyra. —