Palmyra ruins will take five years to fix
by Agency Staff,
2016-03-29 07:00:17.0
ARCHAEOLOGISTS were rushing yesterday to the ancient city of Palmyra to assess the damage wreaked by the Islamic State group, after it was ousted by the Syrian army in a bloody battle.
Syria’s antiquities chief said yesterday his department would need five years to restore the ancient ruins of Palmyra damaged by the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group.
"If we have Unesco’s approval, we will need five years to restore the structures damaged or destroyed by IS," Maamoun Abdulkarim said in referring to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.
President Bashar al-Assad hailed the victory as "important" as Damascus reportedly dispatched experts to check the damage wreaked by the jihadists on the Unesco world heritage site.
An AFP correspondent inside Palmyra said some monuments including the iconic Temple of Bel, lay in pieces almost a year after the jihadists seized the site, but much of the ancient city was still intact.
Residential neighbourhoods in the adjacent modern town in which 70,000 people lived before the war, were deserted and damage there was widespread, the correspondent said.
Syrian soldiers, progovernment militiamen and Russian fighters strolled among the ruins in awe after seizing the city on Sunday, while troops from the regime kicked around a football in the middle of a street.
Islamic State sparked a global outcry when members started destroying Palmyra’s treasured monuments, which the group considered to be idolatrous, after taking the city in May last year. Syria’s antiquities chief said the priceless artefacts had survived better than feared from a campaign of destruction Unesco described as a "war crime".
"We were expecting the worst. But the landscape, in general, is in good shape," Maamoun Abdulkarim told AFP from Damascus. "We could have completely lost Palmyra.... The joy I feel is indescribable."
An historian of the ancient world, Maurice Sartre, said Mr Abdulkarim was already on his way from Damascus to begin a survey of the ruins.
"One mustn’t forget that only around 15% to 20% of Palmyra had actually been excavated, and so there was an enormous amount yet to discover," he said.
"All the tombs we hadn’t excavated and have now been totally pillaged are lost to science forever."
IS had used Palmyra’s ancient theatre as a venue for public executions and also murdered the city’s 82-year-old former antiquities chief.
The Syrian army said the city would now serve as a base to "broaden operations" against Islamic State, including in its stronghold of Raqa and Deir Ezzor further east.
At least 400 Islamic State fighters were killed in the battle for the city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. On the government side, 188 troops and militiamen were killed in fighting.
"That’s the heaviest losses that IS has sustained in a single battle since its creation" in 2013, the director of the Britain-based monitoring group, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP.
The ancient city, northeast of Damascus, drew about 150,000 tourists a year before Syria’s civil war and is known to Syrians as the "Pearl of the Desert". Syrian state television broadcast footage from inside Palmyra’s famed museum, showing jagged pieces of sculptures on the ground and blanketed in dust.
Islamic State is under growing pressure from Syrian and Iraqi forces determined to retake bastions of its self-proclaimed "caliphate".
On Thursday, the Iraqi army announced the launch of an offensive to eventually recapture second city Mosul, held by the jihadists since June 2014.
Russian forces, which intervened in support of longtime ally Mr Assad last September, were heavily involved in the Palmyra offensive.
Russian warplanes carried out 40 combat sorties around Palmyra in the past 24 hours, striking 117 "terrorist targets" and killing 80 Islamic State fighters, Moscow’s defence ministry said.
Mr Assad said that the victory was "fresh proof of the efficiency of the Syrian army and its allies in fighting terrorism".
AFP
DESTROYED: Syrian troops walk in the streets of the residential neighbourhoods in the modern town adjacent to the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra. Picture: AFP
ARCHAEOLOGISTS were rushing yesterday to the ancient city of Palmyra to assess the damage wreaked by the Islamic State group, after it was ousted by the Syrian army in a bloody battle.
Syria’s antiquities chief said yesterday his department would need five years to restore the ancient ruins of Palmyra damaged by the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group.
"If we have Unesco’s approval, we will need five years to restore the structures damaged or destroyed by IS," Maamoun Abdulkarim said in referring to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.
President Bashar al-Assad hailed the victory as "important" as Damascus reportedly dispatched experts to check the damage wreaked by the jihadists on the Unesco world heritage site.
An AFP correspondent inside Palmyra said some monuments including the iconic Temple of Bel, lay in pieces almost a year after the jihadists seized the site, but much of the ancient city was still intact.
Residential neighbourhoods in the adjacent modern town in which 70,000 people lived before the war, were deserted and damage there was widespread, the correspondent said.
Syrian soldiers, progovernment militiamen and Russian fighters strolled among the ruins in awe after seizing the city on Sunday, while troops from the regime kicked around a football in the middle of a street.
Islamic State sparked a global outcry when members started destroying Palmyra’s treasured monuments, which the group considered to be idolatrous, after taking the city in May last year. Syria’s antiquities chief said the priceless artefacts had survived better than feared from a campaign of destruction Unesco described as a "war crime".
"We were expecting the worst. But the landscape, in general, is in good shape," Maamoun Abdulkarim told AFP from Damascus. "We could have completely lost Palmyra.... The joy I feel is indescribable."
An historian of the ancient world, Maurice Sartre, said Mr Abdulkarim was already on his way from Damascus to begin a survey of the ruins.
"One mustn’t forget that only around 15% to 20% of Palmyra had actually been excavated, and so there was an enormous amount yet to discover," he said.
"All the tombs we hadn’t excavated and have now been totally pillaged are lost to science forever."
IS had used Palmyra’s ancient theatre as a venue for public executions and also murdered the city’s 82-year-old former antiquities chief.
The Syrian army said the city would now serve as a base to "broaden operations" against Islamic State, including in its stronghold of Raqa and Deir Ezzor further east.
At least 400 Islamic State fighters were killed in the battle for the city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. On the government side, 188 troops and militiamen were killed in fighting.
"That’s the heaviest losses that IS has sustained in a single battle since its creation" in 2013, the director of the Britain-based monitoring group, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP.
The ancient city, northeast of Damascus, drew about 150,000 tourists a year before Syria’s civil war and is known to Syrians as the "Pearl of the Desert". Syrian state television broadcast footage from inside Palmyra’s famed museum, showing jagged pieces of sculptures on the ground and blanketed in dust.
Islamic State is under growing pressure from Syrian and Iraqi forces determined to retake bastions of its self-proclaimed "caliphate".
On Thursday, the Iraqi army announced the launch of an offensive to eventually recapture second city Mosul, held by the jihadists since June 2014.
Russian forces, which intervened in support of longtime ally Mr Assad last September, were heavily involved in the Palmyra offensive.
Russian warplanes carried out 40 combat sorties around Palmyra in the past 24 hours, striking 117 "terrorist targets" and killing 80 Islamic State fighters, Moscow’s defence ministry said.
Mr Assad said that the victory was "fresh proof of the efficiency of the Syrian army and its allies in fighting terrorism".
AFP
Change: 1.37%
Change: 1.32%
Change: 2.91%
Change: 0.45%
Change: 3.09%
Data supplied by Profile Data
Change: 1.59%
Change: 0.47%
Change: 1.37%
Change: 0.00%
Change: 0.44%
Data supplied by Profile Data
Change: 0.22%
Change: -0.05%
Change: 0.04%
Change: 0.23%
Change: 0.00%
Data supplied by Profile Data
Change: 0.26%
Change: 0.31%
Change: 0.13%
Change: 0.36%
Change: -0.74%
Data supplied by Profile Data