Russian airstrikes drove ISIS fighters from Syria’s Palmyra overnight, just hours after the militant group tried to regain control of the ancient city, a monitor said Sunday.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ISIS fighters had seized almost the entire city for a brief period before Russian warplanes began an intense bombardment, forcing the militants to withdraw to orchards on Palmyra’s outskirts and nearby towns.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its jets had delivered 64 airstrikes overnight and claimed to have killed 300 militants in the raid.
“During the night, Syrian government forces, actively supported by the Russian Aerospace Forces, repelled all attacks by terrorists on Palmyra. The attacking side actively used car bombs, armor and rocket artillery systems,” the ministry told the state-run Sputnik news agency.
“Eleven battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, 31 cars with heavy machine guns, and over 300 militants were destroyed.”
ISIS seized control of Palmyra, a UN-listed World Heritage Site in May 2015, but Syrian government forces recaptured it in March this year.
ISIS demolished many of the city’s ancient treasures, including the 1,800-year-old Arch of Triumph and the nearly 2,000-year-old Temple of Baalshamin, as well as the Temple of Bel. The group beheaded the antiquities expert who looked after the ruins.
Syria said ISIS also destroyed two Muslim holy sites: a 500-year-old shrine and a tomb where a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed’s cousin was reportedly buried.
Palmyra was a caravan oasis when the Romans overtook it in the middle of the first century.
In the centuries that followed, the area “stood at the crossroads of several civilizations,” with its art and architecture mixing Greek, Roman and Persian influences, according to UNESCO, the UN agency that documents the world’s most important cultural and natural sites.