DAMASCUS, (APP/AFP) – Pro-government forces pushed
a fierce bid to recapture Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra from
militants Thursday as Moscow hosted top US diplomat John Kerry for
talks on the fraught peace process.
The Islamic State group called on civilians still living in
Palmyra to leave, as army and pro-government militia battled the
militants on several fronts along the city’s western ring, the
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
IS overran Palmyra — known as the “Pearl of the Desert”
— last May and it has since blown up UNESCO-listed temples and
looted relics that dated back thousands of years.
The city’s recapture would be a strategic as well as
symbolic victory for President Bashar al-Assad, since whoever
holds it also controls the vast desert extending from central
Syria to the Iraqi border, experts say.
Only some 15,000 of Palmyra’s 70,000 residents stayed on
under IS rule, which saw atrocities including public beheadings
in the city’s ancient amphitheatre, according to Observatory
director Rami Abdel Rahman.
“The vast majority had already fled — only those too
poor to flee stayed behind,” he said.
The government’s ground offensive, backed by Russian
and Syrian warplanes, has been slowed by mines planted by IS
in the fields surrounding the city, Abdel Rahman said.
Yet troops on Thursday appeared poised to launch their
final assault on the city, as fighting raged on the edge of
the Hayy al-Gharf neighbourhood in the southwest of the
city.
“The army is 300 metres (yards) from the entrance of
Palmyra,” a Syrian military source told AFP on condition
of anonymity.
A security source meanwhile said the army and its allies
had closed in on Palmyra by recapturing three key hilltops
around the city.
“Now the choice is in the hands of Daesh — either they
withdraw or they will go to war in the city against the Syrian
army. It is unlikely they will do the latter, because they have
already started planting booby traps in the neighbourhoods,” the
source said.
Another security source said two army units backed by
allied militia were taking part in the ground offensive.
The Observatory however reported IS was still
deploying reinforcements to the frontlines.
– Kerry in rare talks with Putin –
==================================
The focus of Syria’s war has shifted to Palmyra since
Russian President Vladimir Putin, a key Assad backer, last week
announced a partial withdrawal of troops from Syria’s war amid
negotiations in Geneva between the regime and opposition.
In Moscow, US Secretary of State Kerry was to hold a
rare meeting with Putin to gauge whether Russia is ready to
discuss ways to ease ally Assad from power — a key demand
of the Syrian opposition.
Kerry first met his counterpart Sergei Lavrov, stressing
that much work lay ahead.
“We both know that more needs to be done in terms of
both the reduction of violence and the flow of humanitarian
goods,” Kerry told Lavrov.
Tuesday’s bombings in Brussels “underscore the urgency”
of fighting IS and other extremist organisations, he
added.
The Moscow meetings came as UN envoy Staffan de Mistura
met the government delegation to Geneva, on the final day in the
current round of indirect peace negotiations.