Islamic State fighters have withdrawn from Palmyra in a defeat hailed by the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, as a success for his government forces and allies.
The Isis retreat came after an assault from Syrian government forces backed by Russian airstrikes, Syrian state media and activist monitoring groups said on Sunday.
“The liberation of the historic city of Palmyra today is an important achievement and another indication of the success of the strategy pursued by the Syrian army and its allies in the war against terrorism,” state television quoted Assad as telling a visiting French delegation. The capture of the modern city and its celebrated ancient ruins follows a three-week campaign and strategically leaves exposed the approaches to the Isis heartlands of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa to the east, to where many fighters retreated.
Isis has come under mounting pressure on several fronts in Iraq and Syria in recent months.
Syrian television quoted a military source saying the army and its militia allies took “complete control over the city of Palmyra”. A state TV reporter spoke live from inside Palmyra, showing troops in the centre and some of the nearby buildings reduced to rubble. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said there was still gunfire in the eastern part of the city on Sunday morning but the bulk of the Isis force had retreated.
The SOHR’s director, Rami Abdulrahman, said 400 Isis fighters died in the battle, which he described as the biggest single defeat for the group since it declared a caliphate in areas of Syria and Iraq under its control in 2014.
Moscow announced earlier this month that it would begin drawing down its forces in Syria but would continue to target Isis and other extremist groups. Russia’s defence minister said on Saturday that Russian jets had carried out 40 air sorties near Palmyra in a 24-hour period, hitting 158 targets and killing more than 100 militants.
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