AFP, Beirut :Islamic State fighters in Syria have entered the ruins of Palmyra after taking complete control of the historic city, a group monitoring the war said on Thursday, putting the world heritage site at risk of destruction.The Al Qaeda offshoot controlled the central city’s military air base, prison and intelligence headquarters, having stormed it on Wednesday, said Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.Clashes since Wednesday had killed at least 100 pro-government fighters, he said. Pro-government forces have withdrawn, according to Syrian state media.Abdulrahman, who bases his information on a network of sources on the ground, said there were so far no reports of destruction of the city’s historic artifacts. “IS fighters are in all parts of Tadmur, including near the archeological site,” Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP, using the Arabic name for the city.The jihadists also proclaimed their capture of the entire city, which is strategically located at the crossroads of key highways leading west to Damascus and Homs, and east to Iraq.The Observatory said regime troops had pulled back from positions in and around Palmyra, including from an army intelligence outpost, a military airport and a prison which the jihadists captured overnight.The monitor, which relies on a network of sources on the ground, said IS now controls more than 95,000 square kilometres of Syria, which has been engulfed by a multi-sided civil war since a 2011 uprising.The jihadists, notorious for demolishing archaeological treasures since declaring a “caliphate” last year straddling Iraq and Syria, fought their way into Palmyra on foot after breaking through in the city’s north.”Regime troops collapsed and withdrew from their positions without resistance,” said Mohamed Hassan al-Homsi, an activist originally from Palmyra.The assault on Palmyra came days after the militants took the Iraqi city of Ramadi, their most significant victory since mid-2014 when they conquered swathes of land, sparking a US-led air campaign to support Baghdad.A US State Department official said the loss of Ramadi would force Washington to take an “extremely hard look” at its strategy against IS.The jihadists sparked international outrage this year when they blew up the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud and smashed artefacts in the museum of Mosul, both in Iraq.”The situation is very bad,” Syria’s antiquities chief, Mamoun Abdulkarim, said on Wednesday as IS overran the north of Palmyra.”If only five members of IS go into the ancient buildings, they’ll destroy everything,” he added, calling for international action to save the city.Hundreds of statues and artefacts from Palmyra’s museum have been transferred out of the city, according to Abdulkarim, but many others — including massive tombs — could not be moved.In neighbouring Iraq, IS consolidated its hold on Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, just 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of the capital.On Wednesday, the Anbar police chief was dismissed, after video footage emerged online suggesting security personnel deserted their posts at the height of the IS offensive.The militants’ gains have sparked international concerns, with France pledging Wednesday to host high-level international talks next month in Paris over the threat posed by IS.The US official said Washington would step up its aid to Iraq, including sending 1,000 anti-tank missile systems to help stop suicide car bombs and accelerating its training and equipping of tribal forces to fight IS.
