The Syrian and Russian governments have hailed their recapture of the ancient oasis city of Palmyra from Islamic State, ending a 10-month ordeal that saw the destruction of some of the historic site’s most famed monuments.
The battle for the city is the latest in a string of defeats for Isis, now in retreat across Syria and Iraq, where it once controlled vast tracts of territory: nearly half of Syria and the desert plains of Nineveh and most of Anbar in Iraq.
Palmyra’s reclamation by Assad’s army, after weeks of intense combat, was aided by some of the heaviest Russian airstrikes since Moscow launched its military intervention last autumn. It is also a significant morale boost for the embattled Syrian strongman as well as the Kremlin.
“The liberation of the historic city of Tadmur (Palmyra) today is an important achievement and is evidence of the efficacy of the strategy adopted by the Syrian army and its allies in the war on terrorism,” Assad told a French delegation in Damascus.
A televised statement by the Syrian military said it had established full control over Palmyra, which was conquered by Isis last May. “We have restored security and stability to the city of Palmyra, and established full control on the surrounding, commanding hills,” the Syrian military said in its statement.
State TV said troops were working on clearing mines from the town and its monuments, where numerous booby traps were laid down by the militants before their retreat.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, congratulated Assad on the victory, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying on Sunday. “Assad highly valued the help Russian air forces have provided and underlined that such successes as regaining Palmyra would have been impossible without Russia’s support,” he told the Tass news agency.
Russia has long insisted that it sought to fight terrorist groups through its intervention in Syria, when in reality its attacks have predominantly targeted mainstream opposition groups battling to overthrow the Syrian president.
But the victory in Palmyra is likely to boost the Kremlin’s campaign, which has always portrayed the Syrian leader, whose violent response to protests sparked the creation of an armed opposition, as an effective force in fighting terrorism.
“Our army, in cooperation with its friends, is the only effective force able to fight and eliminate terrorism,” the Syrian military said in its statement after securing Palmyra.
The fall of the city to Isis gained worldwide attention as it hosts some of the most well-preserved ruins of antiquity. Isis destroyed the iconic temples of Bel and Baalshamin as well as the Arch of Triumph, looting graves and using the amphitheatre to stage executions.
Palmyra’s contemporary strategic importance lies in its location in central Syria; while under Isis’s control, it was a gateway to threaten the more densely populated government-held provinces to the west, including Homs and Damascus.
Its recapture means Assad’s forces can use Palmyra as a stepping stone for offensives against Isis-held territory in Syria’s eastern desert, where the militants are entrenched in Deir ez-Zor, as well as the self-proclaimed caliphate’s de facto capital in Raqqa.
The Syrian military said it would use Palmyra as the staging ground for just such a campaign, but it remains to be seen whether it has the manpower to attempt such a large-scale effort, debilitated as it is by five years of civil conflict.
The defeat is a remarkable turn of fortunes for Isis, which has seen its territory in Syria and Iraq recede under disparate offensives throughout the two collapsing nation-states. The group has turned instead to attacks abroad to bolster its faltering morale.
Less than a year ago, in May 2015, the group had conquered Palmyra and Ramadi west of Baghdad, and established control over approximately half of Syria’s landmass.
But last November it lost Sinjar, the ancestral homeland of the Yazidi community, to a US-backed Kurdish offensive. Ramadi was liberated by Iraqi counter-terrorism troops, and the group has continued to lose territory in northern Syria, including its strategic hub in the town of Shaddadi, to Kurdish forces.
Iraq is also laying the groundwork for an offensive on the city of Mosul, the largest city under Isis control.
In an article for the Guardian, Syria’s director of antiquities, Maamoun Abdelkarim, said a team of archaeologists would go to Palmyra in the coming days to assess the damage to its monuments, and pledged to rebuild the destroyed temples and arch.
“We will issue a challenge to international terrorism, that no matter what you do you cannot erase our history, and we will not sit idle and weep over the ruins,” he said.
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