{"id":32975,"date":"2017-03-03T12:25:34","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T12:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/palmyra-russia-backed-syria-army-retakes-ancient\/"},"modified":"2017-03-03T12:25:00","modified_gmt":"2017-03-03T12:25:00","slug":"palmyra-russia-backed-syria-army-retakes-ancient","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/palmyra-russia-backed-syria-army-retakes-ancient\/","title":{"rendered":"Palmyra: Russia-backed Syria army retakes ancient city"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Joint operation involving Russian air power and Shia militia forces ISIL to retreat again from historic city.}<\/p>\n<p>The Syrian army said it has recaptured the ancient city of Palmyra from ISIL for the second time in a year with help from allied forces and Russian warplanes.<\/p>\n<p>The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group seized Palmyra in a surprise advance in December after having been driven out eight months before.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With backing from the Syrian and Russian air forces, units of our armed forces recaptured the city of Palmyra, in cooperation with the allies,&#8221; the military said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>The army and Iranian-backed militia advanced inside Palmyra on Thursday as ISIL withdrew completely, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said.<\/p>\n<p>ISIL retreated to areas in the east, the Syrian Observatory reported. Government forces took control of swathes of Palmyra and conducted combing operations to clear land mines, it said.<\/p>\n<p>During ISIL&#8217;s first occupation, which ended in March last year, the armed group destroyed some of Palmyra&#8217;s priceless archaeological heritage. It is believed to have razed other parts of the historical ruins after regaining control in December.<\/p>\n<p>The Syrian army is also fighting ISIL east of Aleppo city, where it is pushing to reach the Euphrates River, and in the city of Deir al-Zor, where it controls an enclave besieged by fighters.<\/p>\n<p>ISIL is on the back foot in Syria after losing territory in the north to an alliance of US-backed Kurdish-led militias, and to Turkey-backed Syrian rebel groups.<\/p>\n<p>Government and opposition delegations are attending UN-sponsored peace talks in Geneva, where the government&#8217;s chief negotiator hailed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for keeping his promise to retake Palmyra.<\/p>\n<p>The Syrian opposition, however, declined to congratulate Assad on capturing Palmyra and suggested the city changing hands again was possible.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-18593 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/94ee60dc51bb4c11bbe8dbd514cd5df0_18.jpg\" alt=\"Syrian soldiers recaptured Palmyra from ISIL once before in April, 2016\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Source:Al Jazeera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Joint operation involving Russian air power and Shia militia forces ISIL to retreat again from historic city.} The Syrian army said it has recaptured the ancient city of Palmyra from ISIL for the second time in a year with help from allied forces and Russian warplanes. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group [&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":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-32975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","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":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","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":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32975","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=32975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32975"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=32975"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=32975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}