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.

Source: Arab News