Middle East ISIS Fighters Seize Control of Syrian City of Palmyra, and Ancient Ruins

[cali]

Islamic State militants swept into the desert city of Palmyra in central Syria on Wednesday, and by evening were in control of it, residents and Syrian state news media said, a victory that gives them another strategically important prize five days after the group seized the Iraqi city of Ramadi.

Palmyra has extra resonance, with its grand complex of 2,000-year-old colonnades and tombs, one of the world’s most magnificent remnants of antiquity, as well as the grimmer modern landmark of Tadmur Prison, where Syrian dissidents have languished over the decades.

But for the fighters on the ground, the city of 50,000 people is significant because it sits among gas fields and astride a network of roads across the country’s central desert. Palmyra’s vast unexcavated antiquities could also provide significant revenue through illegal trafficking.

Control of Palmyra gives the Islamic State command of roads leading from its strongholds in eastern Syria to Damascus and the other major cities of the populated west, as well as new links to western Iraq, the other half of its self-declared caliphate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/21/world/middleeast/syria-isis-fighters-enter-ancient-city-of-palmyra.html?_r=0

[Cali_Democrat]

1. Meh. nt

[cali]

2. Meh? Not much for history, cultural treasures or great art, I see.

Not to mention the human misery and violence involved.

Okey Dokey.

[Cali_Democrat]

3. I don't give a shit about ISIS. It sucks they're fucking shit up, but oh well. Not our problem. nt

[cali]

5. Palmyra is one of the world's greatest cultural treasures

and its destruction, which most people think ISIS will carry out, will be an enormous loss to the Syrian people and the world. It's hard to overemphasize its importance.

Makes me sad to see a city that is in itself a great work of art and that has survived close to 5,000 years, destroyed

[Cali_Democrat]

6. It's awful for sure, but ultimately not a problem we can solve or should try to solve. nt

[kentuck]

4. If they want a "caliphate", why would they destroy it on their way?

I don't think anyone understands the Middle East at this time.

ISIS is only 70 miles from Baghdad in Ramadi...And now they control Palmyra, and not too far from Damascus.

There's definitely things going on that we don't know.

I think Iraq is mostly the Sunnis coming back into their country to take it back from the Shites in Bagdad?

Syria may be more of a mixture of fighters from Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and other places in the Middle East (and the World)? Maybe the majority of the fighters in Syria are Syrians that are unhappy with Assad? I think what we are seeing is, basically, a civil war in Iraq, Syria, and other places in the area. I don't know that America should have any further role in it, since we broke apart Iraq and scattered the mischief to begin with?

[cali]

7. that's what they do. They say it's idolatry

it's also about the shock value. ISIS has destroyed a significant number of sites and many antiquities. They destroyed the ancient Assyrian City of Nimrud in Iraq and they destroyed the Mosul Museum, among other sites. They bulldoze and detonate these places.