Syrian forces have entered Palmyra held by ISIS for last one year

ISIS has held the city of Palmyra ever since May last year and the Syrian government forces have now entered the city. IS had demolished several historic landmarks and ancient structures and had also carried out a series of beheading in the iconic amphitheater.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 24 March 2016.

In advance of the latest assault, IS has apparently used loudspeakers to announce to the 15,000 odd civilians still living in Palmyra to leave the city. The fighting is reportedly concentrated near the archaeological site on the southwestern edge of the town and, the Syrian forces are less than a mile from the heart of the city, and roads are being cleared of mines and explosives.
Simultaneously, in Iraq, armed forces are bearing down on the IS-held city of Mosul and it is the first stage of an operation aimed at liberating Mosul - it took off with an offensive against IS in the northerly Nineveh province launched from the Makhmour area where Iraqi troops have been deployed in recent weeks.
The troops are backed by air power from a US-led coalition and Kurdish peshmerga forces and several villages have already been recaptured. Mosul was home to two million people before it was taken over by IS. Mosul is, now, the largest city controlled by the group and is still heavily populated - this makes it more complicated to retake.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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