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Islamic State driven out of Syria's ancient Palmyra city
[REUTERS] Syrian government forces backed by heavy Russian air support drove Islamic State...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... out of Palmyra on Sunday, inflicting what the army called a mortal blow to gunnies who seized the city last year and dynamited its ancient temples. The loss of Palmyra represents one of the biggest setbacks for the ultra-hardline Islamist group since it declared a caliphate in 2014 across large parts of Syria and Iraq. The army general command said that its forces took over the city with support from Russian and Syrian air strikes, opening up the huge expanse of desert leading east to the Islamic State strongholds of Raqqa and Deir al-Zor. Palmyra would become "a launchpad to expand military operations" against the group in those two provinces, it said, promising to "tighten the noose on the terrorist group and cut supply routes ... ahead of their complete recapture". The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said festivities continued on the eastern edge of Palmyra, around the prison and airport, but the bulk of the Islamic State force had withdrawn and retreated east, leaving the city under  Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad Lord of the Baath... 's control. Later the Observatory said six powerful kabooms were heard in the city triggered by triple boom-mobileings inside the city and its edges by the krazed killer group. Three gunnies with suicide belts also blew themselves up inside the captured city, inflicting unspecified casualties among army forces and allied troops. Syrian state-run television broadcast from inside the city, showing empty streets and badly damaged buildings. It quoted a military source saying Syrian and Russian jets were targeting Islamic State fighters as they fled, hitting dozens of vehicles on the roads leading east from the city. Posted by: Fred 2016-03-28 |
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