(MENAFN- Arab Times) Islamic State group jihadists have mined the spectacular ancient ruins in Syria's Palmyra, an antiquities official and monitor said Sunday, prompting fears for the UNESCO World Heritage site.
The reports came one month after the extremist group overran the central Syrian city. Syria's antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said that the group had laid mines and explosives in Palmyra's Greco-Roman ruins. The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources on the ground, said the explosives were laid on Saturday. "But it is not known if the purpose is to blow up the ruins or to prevent regime forces from advancing into the town," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman. He said regime forces had launched heavy air strikes against the residential part of Palmyra in the past three days, killing at least 11 people. "The regime forces are to the west outside the city, and in recent days they have brought in reinforcements suggesting they may be planning an operation to retake Palmyra," he added.
A political source told AFP that a leading commander had been dispatched to the region to organise an offensive to recapture and secure Palmyra and several key gas fields nearby. Abdulkarim also said Sunday he had received reports from Palmyra residents that the ruins had been mined. "We have preliminary information from residents saying that this is correct, they have laid mines at the temple site," he told AFP. "I hope that these reports are not correct, but we are worried." He urged "Palmyra's residents, tribal chiefs and religious and cultural figures to intervene to prevent this " and prevent what happened in northern Iraq", referring to IS's destruction of heritage sites there. "I am very pessimistic and feel sadness," he added.
IS captured Palmyra, which is famed for its extensive and well-preserved ruins, on May 21. The group has regularly heavily mined its territory to make it more difficult to recapture. The city's fall prompted international concern about the fate of the heritage site described by UNESCO as of "outstanding universal value". Before it was overrun, the head of the UN cultural body urged that the ruins be spared, saying they were "an irreplaceable treasure for the Syrian people, and the world". IS has released several videos documenting its destruction of heritage sites in Iraq and Syria. In its extreme interpretation of Islam, statues, idols and shrines amount to recognising objects of worship other than God and must be destroyed.
There have been no reports of damage to sites in Palmyra since IS seized it, though the group's fighters reportedly entered the city's museum, which had largely been emptied of its collection before the jihadists arrived. The group executed more than 200 people in and around Palmyra in the days after capturing the city, including 20 who were shot dead in the ancient ruins, according to the Observatory. Before Syria's war began, more than 150,000 tourists visited Palmyra each year, admiring its beautiful statues, more than 1,000 columns and formidable necropolis of over 500 tombs.
It had already suffered before IS's arrival, with clashes between rebels and government forces in 2013 leaving collapsed columns and statues in their wake. The site is also believed to have been looted during the chaos of the war that began in March 2011 with anti-government protests. In December, the UN said nearly 300 cultural heritage sites in Syria, including Palmyra, had been destroyed, damaged and looted. More than 230,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict started.
Blockade
An international medical aid agency on Sunday voiced alarm over a fuel blockade imposed by the Islamic State group in northern Syria that it says is badly hindering relief efforts. The IS blockade was having an impact on humanitarian relief activities in a region devastated by more than four years of conflict, said Dounia Dekhili, the Syria programme manager for Doctors Without Borders (MSF). "Many health facilities and aid organisations have had to stop or significantly reduce their activities because of the lack of fuel to power generators and for transportation," she told AFP. Dekhili said the fuel shortage was further complicated by fighting among various armed groups in the north of Syria, including between IS and the al-Qaedaaffiliated Al-Nusra Front. IS controls oil wells and refineries in eastern Syria, and uses them to put pressure on areas held by mainstream rebel groups fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad. MSF said health authorities in Hama and Idlib, in central and northwestern Syria, issued distress call over fuel shortages on June 15 and 16, with hospitals seeking help.
Similar appeals have gone out from Aleppo in the north and Latakia, a government stronghold on the Mediterranean coast. Hospitals were in danger of being forced to close and "the lives of many Syrians are at even greater risk," said Dekhili. "Fuel is needed to power pumps for drinking water, incubators for newborns and to run ambulances," she added. MSF had begun to supply some fuel but "the support we provide will only have a short-term impact," said Dekhili. "We therefore call upon all parties to the Syrian conflict to allow regular fuel supplies within the country to meet the massive and immediate needs of the population." The agency has five medical facilities inside Syria and provides direct support to more than 100 clinics, health facilities and field hospitals. One person was killed and three wounded on Sunday in a suicide bomb attack on the Kurdish city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria, the official news agency SANA reported. "A terrorist detonated his explosive belt near the Hadaya hotel in the centre of Qamishli, killing one person and seriously injuring three others," the news agency said.
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