{"id":31008,"date":"2016-12-12T03:50:03","date_gmt":"2016-12-12T03:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/isil-recaptures-palmyra-from-syrian-forces\/"},"modified":"2016-12-12T03:49:58","modified_gmt":"2016-12-12T03:49:58","slug":"isil-recaptures-palmyra-from-syrian-forces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/isil-recaptures-palmyra-from-syrian-forces\/","title":{"rendered":"ISIL &#8216;recaptures&#8217; Palmyra from Syrian forces"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{More than 4,000 fighters converge on ancient city, forcing government troops to retreat south in reversal of fortunes.}<\/p>\n<p>ISIL has recaptured the Syrian city of Palmyra after thousands of its fighters launched a multi-pronged assault on the ancient city, according to reports.<\/p>\n<p>The Russian Monitoring Centre in Syria said on Sunday that ISIL, or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group, had drawn on &#8220;significant forces&#8221; from its strongholds in nearby Raqqa and Deir Az-zor, with more than 4,000 fighters, backed by tanks, attacking the city.<\/p>\n<p>Russia, Syria&#8217;s ally, had launched a flurry of air strikes overnight that reportedly killed 300 ISIL fighters and forced the group to retreat.<\/p>\n<p>However, later on Sunday, ISIL, also known as ISIS, claimed to be in full control of Palmyra via Amaq, a news agency that supports the group, with government troops forced to retreat to the south of the city.<\/p>\n<p>Talal al-Barazi, the governor of Homs, confirmed to Syrian state TV that ISIL had captured Palmyra, adding that the army was using all of its means to regain control.<\/p>\n<p>ISIL captured Palmyra, also known as Tadmur, in May last year, before losing the city 10 months later to much international fanfare.<\/p>\n<p>During that time, it destroyed some ancient sites and artefacts while using others to stage mass executions.<\/p>\n<p>{{String of defeats}}<\/p>\n<p>ISIL also destroyed the infamous Tadmur prison, where thousands of government opponents were reported to have been tortured.<\/p>\n<p>ISIL has suffered a string of defeats in both Syria and Iraq in recent months, losing several towns and cities it had captured in 2014.<\/p>\n<p>According to defence analysts at the think tank IHS Jane, ISIL lost about 12 percent of its territory in 2016, and about 14 percent in 2015.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-16987 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/7c7c9e07cd7b4bf7942e35d00a40a8fe_18.jpg\" alt=\"Before the war some 150,000 tourists a year visited Palmyra\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{More than 4,000 fighters converge on ancient city, forcing government troops to retreat south in reversal of fortunes.} ISIL has recaptured the Syrian city of Palmyra after thousands of its fighters launched a multi-pronged assault on the ancient city, according to reports. The Russian Monitoring Centre in Syria said on Sunday that ISIL, or the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-31008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31008"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=31008"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=31008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}