Syrian Army Retakes Daesh-Occupied Palmyra

Local Editor

The Syrian Army and allied forces had liberated the Palmyra citadel located on a hill overlooking the town from the Wahhabi Daesh [Arabic acronym for "ISIS" / "ISIL"] which fell to the terrorist group for a second time a few months ago.

"The army has entered a western neighborhood of Palmyra and has seized control of part of it," Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the so-called "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights", told AFP on Wednesday.

The Syrian troops also managed to retake a palace complex to the city's southwest, a report said.

Earlier in the day, an unnamed Syrian military source told Reuters that the Syrian troops, backed by Russia's air cover, had advanced to the outskirts of Palmyra, also known in Arabic as Tadmur, in the last few days and their "entry to the city will begin very soon."

The developments came on the same day as the Syrian military announced the recapture of an area called the "Palmyra triangle" a few kilometers west of the city.

Meanwhile, Syria's official SANA news agency reported that the gain followed fierce clashes between Daesh militants and the Syrian army and its allied fighters, leaving scores of the terrorists dead or injured.

Additionally, the so-called "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" confirmed that the army were expected to storm Palmyra at "any moment."

Russia had also expressed its readiness to deploy aircraft in support of the Palmyra operation.

The Syrian army, backed by Russia's counter-terrorism airstrikes, liberated Palmyra in March 2016 after Daesh held the city for 10 months.

However, Daesh managed to seize the historic city once again in December 2016 after days of intense fighting as the Syrian military focused mainly on defeating terrorist groups in eastern Aleppo.

During both of its spells in control of Palmyra, Daesh razed ancient monuments and dismantled key parts of the city's UNESCO World Heritage ruins.

The Syrian forces had been fighting different foreign-backed militant groups wreaking havoc in the Middle Eastern country since 2011.

Over the past few months, troops had made sweeping gains against Takfiri terrorists who had lately increased their acts of violence across Syria following a series of defeats in Aleppo and elsewhere.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team