...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who must be killed...
ISIS murderous Moslems from further advancing toward the city.
The army said in a statement on Saturday that festivities are underway between government forces and the terrorists, who have advanced to the city’s outskirts.
The statement said that the Lions of Islam had seized areas to the northwest and southeast of the historic city.
According to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the terrorist group launched the recent offensive late on Thursday, when it seized grain silos northeast of Palmyra, and has since taken at least partial control of oil and gas fields to the city’s northwest.
The Syrian army, backed by popular forces and a wave of Russian
Syrian army and allied forces are also busy driving the Takfiri murderous Moslems from the strategic northwestern city of Aleppo. On Friday, government forces liberated 52 blocks in the eastern parts of the city and are now in control of 93 percent of the whole city, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
The recent army gains come despite the persistent financial and military support that many foreign states have been providing to the Lions of Islam since 2011 to bring about the ouster of
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Lord of the Baath....
ISIS enters Palmyra
BEIRUT: Fighters of the Daesh group on Saturday re-entered Syria’s famed ancient desert city of Palmyra from which they were driven out eight months ago, a monitor said.
“IS entered Palmyra on Saturday and now occupies its northwest. There is also fighting with the army in the city center,” said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The jihadists began an offensive in recent days near the town which is on UNESCO’s world heritage list.
In May last year, Daesh seized several towns in Homs province including Palmyra, where they caused extensive damage to many of its ancient sites.
They were ousted from Palmyra in March by Syrian regime forces backed by Russia.
ISIS captures Palmyra
AMMAN/BEIRUT: Daesh militants on Saturday captured most of the ancient city of Palmyra after penetrating Syrian regime’s army defenses and securing strategic heights around the ancient city in eastern Syria following a surprise assault, a monitoring group and rebels said.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were fears for the lives and safety of civilians inside the city because many of them were pro-regime.
The opposition and the war monitor said with the exception of the southern parts, most of the city was now in the hands of the militants who had waged an attack on several fronts.
Meanwhile, the regime’s army tightened its grip Saturday on opposition fighters besieged in Aleppo along with thousands of civilians.
Airstrikes pummeled the shrinking opposition enclave in east Aleppo as US Secretary of State John Kerry said the regime’s “indiscriminate bombing” amounted to crimes against humanity.
Western powers meeting in Paris called for peace talks to resume and for civilians to be allowed to leave Aleppo, where tens of thousands have already fled the offensive.
UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said the world is watching “the last steps” in the Aleppo battle and evacuating civilians must be a priority.
Meanwhile, the US-led coalition has killed a key leader of Daesh in Syria, the Pentagon said on Saturday.“Coalition warplanes targeted and killed Tunisian Boubaker Al-Hakim, in Raqqa, Syria” on Nov. 26, Pentagon spokesman Ben Sakrisson said in a statement.
“Al-Hakim was a Daesh leader and longtime terrorist with deep ties to French and Tunisian radical elements,” he added.
Al-Hakim is also suspected of involvement in extremist attacks against Tunisian political leadership in 2013, Sakrisson said.
“His removal degrades Daesh’s ability to conduct further attacks in the West and denies Daesh a veteran extremist with extensive ties,” he added.
Hakim’s death also “denies Daesh a key figure with extensive historical and current involvement in facilitation and external operations and degrades their ability to conduct terror attacks around the world,” the statement read.
Separately, the Turkish army and its allies on Saturday entered the Daesh bastion of Al-Bab in northern Syria, the observatory said.
“They entered Al-Bab from the northwest after violent clashes with the radicals as Turkish artillery bombarded the town,” the observatory said. Heavy fighting was ongoing late Saturday in the town near the Turkish border, he said.
| Ynet relates Babouker al Hakim's pre-death history: |
Soon after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, el Hakim wound up in a network of French jihadis and fought with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. ISIS began as an al-Qaida affiliate in Iraq led by al-Zarqawi, until Zarqawi was killed in a US airstrike in June 2006.
El Hakim was arrested in Syria and sent to France, where he was convicted in 2008 and sentenced to seven years in prison. He was considered at the time to be among the most radicalized of the network of young extremists from the Paris area, which included the brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi.
Released from prison in early 2011,
| ...he must have been credited with time served while awaiting trial, or else he was a seriously model prisoner... |
El Hakim moved back and forth between Syria and Iraq using networks of smugglers and jihadis, according to court records obtained by The Associated Press. He appeared on French television calling on friends in Paris to join him.
"I am in Iraq, I'm doing jihad. And all my brothers who are there, should come and defend Islam," he said.