The Islamic State group has demolished more treasured monuments in Syria's ancient Palmyra, a month after recapturing it from government forces, the country's antiquities chief said Friday.

The news is a fresh blow for the UNESCO World Heritage site, which had already been ravaged by the jihadist group during the nine months it held the site before being expelled in March last year.

"Local sources told us that 10 days ago Daesh destroyed the ," a 16-columned structure that marked one end of the ancient city's colonnade, Maamoun Abdulkarim told AFP using an Arabic acronym for IS.

"Yesterday (Thursday), we received satellite photographs from our colleagues at Boston University showing damage to the facade of the Roman amphitheatre," he added.

Before being forced out of Palmyra in a Russian-backed offensive in March, IS razed world-famous temples and tower tombs at the site.

The , built during the rule of the Roman Emperor Diocletian in the 3rd Century AD, consisted of four sets of four pillars each supporting massive stone cornices.

The monument had suffered considerable damage over the centuries and only one of the 16 pillars was still standing in its original Egyptian pink granite. The rest were cement replicas erected by the antiquities department in 1963.

The Roman amphitheatre dates to the 1st Century AD and was used by IS for public executions during its occupation of the city between May 2015 and March last year.

"From the first day, I was bracing myself for a terrible outcome," Abdulkarim said.

"We had already witnessed the terror of the first occupation and frankly I had never thought that the city would be occupied for time."

- Strikes kill 40 jihadists -IS recaptured Palmyra late last year as Syria's government waged a fierce battle to take back all of the northern city of Aleppo from rebel forces.

The surprise fall of Palmyra, in the central province of Homs, gave IS a propaganda boost as it faced twin assaults on two of its key strongholds -- Raqa in Syria and Iraq's second city Mosul.

Syrian forces have battled to prevent further IS advances around Palmyra, and on Thursday fierce clashes between pro-government fighters and jihadists near a military airport in the region left 30 dead, a monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 12 regime forces and 18 IS militants had been killed in the fighting by the Tayfur military airport in Homs province.

Despite its progress around Palmyra, IS lost nearly a quarter of its territory in Syria and Iraq last year, the research firm IHS Markit said Thursday.

The jihadist group is just one of the many forces involved in Syria's complex conflict, which began with anti-government demonstrations in March 2011 and has killed more than 310,000 people since then.

The war has drawn in foreign powers including Russia and a US-led coalition battling IS and other jihadists.

Late Thursday, air strikes killed more than 40 jihadists from the former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front in the west of Aleppo province, the Observatory said.

But the Britain-based monitor said it was not able to determine if the strikes were carried out by Russian or coalition aircraft.

Fateh al-Sham, known previously as Al-Nusra Front, is excluded from a fragile nationwide ceasefire in place in Syria since December 30.

- Peace talks next week -The truce, brokered by regime ally Russia and rebel backer Turkey, is intended to pave the way for fresh peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana beginning January 23.

The nature of the talks remains murky, and there has been indication the two sides have shifted their positions since previous rounds of failed negotiations.

President Bashar al-Assad, speaking to Japan's TBS television in an interview released in full Friday, appeared to dismiss the possibility of a transitional government or his resignation.

Both are key demands of the opposition.

"In our there's nothing called transitional government," Assad said.

"Whoever wants the president to leave, they can go to the ballot box," he added, saying the issue was "not something we discuss either with the opposition or with any other country."

"I'm not the reason of the problem."

Assad also reiterated his hope that US President-elect Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated later Friday, could be a partner going forward.

"We hope that they are genuine to forge a real and realistic alliance to fight the terrorists in the region, and that of course will include Syria first of all," he said. DM</s>MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The recapture of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra by Daesh jihadists was supervised by the United States, Syria's President Bashar Assad told the Japanese TBS broadcaster.

"They [Daesh jihadists] could retake Palmyra under the supervision of the Americans, under the surveillance of the American drones; they came through the desert and they occupied Palmyra," Assad said, according to the interview transcript published by Syria's SANA News Agency.

The Syrian president added that the Daesh had been created "under the supervision" of the United States and sponsored by Turkey, so Syria could not expect a genuine fight against Daesh from those countries.

In December 2016, Daesh, outlawed in Russia and many other countries, recaptured the ancient city of Palmyra from Syrian government forces. According to various sources, the number of terrorists that took part in the storming of the city reached 5,000 including hundreds of suicide bombers and dozens of armored vehicles.</s>The destruction by Islamic State jihadists of two key cultural sites in Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra is a “war crime”, UNESCO said Friday.

“This destruction is a new war crime and an immense loss for the Syrian people and for humanity,” Irina Bokova, director general of the UN cultural agency, said in a statement following reports that IS destroyed Palmyra’s tetrapylon monument and the facade of the city’s Roman amphitheatre.

“This new blow against cultural heritage… shows that cultural cleansing led by violent extremists is seeking to destroy both human lives and historical monuments in order to deprive the Syrian people of its past and its future,” Bokova said.

IS recaptured Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage site, from government forces on December 11 and the new devastation reportedly occurred earlier this month.

The jihadist group had already ravaged the city during the nine months it held the site before being expelled in March last year.

The tetrapylon, built during the rule of the Roman Emperor Diocletian in the third century, consisted of four sets of four pillars each supporting massive stone cornices.

The monument had suffered considerable damage over the centuries and only one of the 16 pillars was still standing in its original Egyptian pink granite. The rest were cement replicas erected in 1963.

The Roman amphitheatre dates to the first century and was used by IS for public executions during its occupation of the city between May 2015 and March 2016.

Before being forced out of Palmyra in a Russian-backed offensive in March, IS razed world-famous temples and tower tombs at the site.</s>A Roman amphitheater in the ancient city of Palmyra has been partially destroyed by ISIS fighters, the Syrian state news agency reported Friday.

According to CNN, Syrian news agency SANA reported that "ISIS destroyed the facade of the Roman theater and the Tetrapylon in the ancient city of Palmyra."

Syrian state news also reported that 12 civilians were executed by ISIS militants in Palmyra on Thursday, CNN said.

Palmyra is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. ISIS first seized control of the amphitheater in May 2016, CNN reported. Syrian regime forces briefly expelled the militants out of the city last year, but ISIS regained control again in December when the army pulled out of the city.</s>Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorists have destroyed part of a Roman theater and the legendary four-column structure ‘Tetrapylon’ in the ancient city of Palmyra, Syrian TV reports.

The facade of the Roman theater has been completely destroyed, Syrian state TV reported , while the scale of damage is currently unknown.

Syrian President Bashar Assad stated that IS managed to retake Palmyra, “backed by Americans, under surveillance of the US drones; they came from the side of the desert and retook Palmyra.”

“ISIS was created under the supervision of the United States... and later Turkey sponsored this State. So we cannot expect to have genuine fight against ISIS by Turkey or the United States, and the recent, more stark example is the attack on Palmyra a few weeks ago,” the Syrian leader told Japanese broadcaster TBS, in an interview also published on the SANA agency website.

“Today, we are talking, and ISIS has been attacking Deir Ezzor in the eastern part of Syria, and the Americans did nothing to stop ISIS."

"This is where the so-called international alliance against terrorism has been working for more than one year and a half now, and they achieved nothing, because they are not serious," Assad added.

IS took control of Palmyra from Syrian troops in December for the second time, after the city was liberated by Syria’s government forces, backed by Russian air power, in March.</s>BEIRUT, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Islamic State militants have destroyed one of the most famous monuments in the ancient city of Palmyra, the Tetrapylon, and the facade of its Roman Theatre, Syrian antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim told Reuters on Friday.

Islamic State control the Palmyra site after capturing it in December for a second time from Syrian government forces.

Government forces and their militia allies, backed by Russian air power, had taken back the city from Islamic State last March after first losing it in 2015.</s>Syria's ancient Palmyra: five things to know

Syria's ancient city of Palmyra, where archaeological treasures are under renewed attack by Islamic State group jihadists, was designated a UNESCO world heritage site in 1980.

IS jihadists first seized Palmyra in May 2015 and began to systematically destroy the central city's monuments. They were driven out in March 2016 but captured the town again last December.

Before the Syrian conflict erupted in 2011, the city of 1,000 columns and a formidable necropolis of more than 500 tombs attracted over 150,000 tourists a year.

Although the precise date of its founding is unknown, Palmyra's name is referred to on a tablet dating from the 19th century BC as a stopping point for caravans between the Mediterranean and the east.

It was during the Roman Empire -- beginning in the first century BC and lasting 400 years -- that the oasis city rose to prominence.

Despite being surrounded by desert, Palmyra developed into a wealthy metropolis thanks to trade in spices, perfumes, silk and ivory from the east.

- Why is it special? -

Known to Syrians as the "Pearl of the Desert", Palmyra boasted temples, colonnaded alleys and elaborately decorated tombs that were some of the best preserved classical monuments in the Middle East.

Situated 210 kilometres (130 miles) northeast of Damascus, its name means City of Palms. It is also known by the Arabic name Tadmor, or City of Dates.

Built on the Western model, "you could almost compare it to Rome", according to Marielle Pic, head of Oriental antiquities at the Louvre museum in Paris.

The city's temples were built after it was declared a free city by Roman emperor Hadrian in 129 AD, which allowed it to collect its own taxes.

"One of the characteristics of Palmyra are the tall, multi-storey tower tombs in which the sarcophagi were laid," Pic says.

In the third century, Palmyrenes beat back the Romans in the west and Persian forces in the east in a revolt led by Zenobia, who became queen after her husband died in mysterious circumstances.

By 270 AD, Zenobia had conquered all of Syria and parts of Egypt. Her forces advanced into what is now Turkey before they were defeated by the Roman emperor Aurelian near Antakya.

IS, which considers statues of humans or animals as blasphemous, overran Palmyra on May 21, 2015.

Three months later, the jihadists beheaded Palmyra's 82-year-old former antiquities chief Khaled al-Assaad and launched a campaign of destruction against treasured monuments.

They destroyed the ancient shrine of Baal Shamin.

In September, they attacked the 2,000-year-old Temple of Bel, a gem of classical architecture.

In October, IS blew up the Arch of Triumph, which dates from around 200 AD.

It also destroyed a dozen of Palmyra's best preserved tower tombs and the famed Lion of Al-Lat outside the city's museum.

The jihadists used the city's ancient amphitheatre as a venue for public execution-style killings, and destroyed a prison where the regime of Hafez al-Assad, father of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, killed hundreds of detainees in 1980.

Syrian government forces, backed by Russian warplanes, recaptured the city on March 27, 2016, but IS fighters stormed back in on December 11.

In early January, IS launched a new operation of devastation, destroying Palmyra's tetrapylon monument and the facade of the city's Roman amphitheatre.</s>But their success was short lived. Isil forces surged back into the city in December and overwhelmed the few Syrian soldiers and Shia militia fighters who had been left to guard the city.

Palmyra fell as Syrian regime forces were focused on the offensive to recapture Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.

Khaled al-Homsi, a Syrian activist originally from Palmyra, said there were only around 85 people still living in the city when it fell to Isil last month and they were being now all being held captive.

Speaking from exile in Turkey, he told The Telegraph that Isil did not seem to be destroying monuments since it regained control. “There has been no new destruction,” he said.

Mr al-Homsi added that Russian forces had left weapons, ammunition and equipment behind when they withdrew from the city. The supplies are believed to now be in Isil’s hands.

While Isil’s fighters are under severe pressure in Iraq, where the Iraqi military and allied militias are laying siege to Mosul, they are reasserting themselves in parts of Syria.

Isil fighters are engaged in fierce combat with regime troops in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, where they are trying to take control of one of the government-controlled third of the city. Around 100,000 people live in the regime part of the city and civilians say they fear mass killings if Isil overruns regime forces.

Isil has been laying siege to the regime part of Deir Ezzor for months but it began a fresh offensive on Saturday and has called in reinforcements from the nearby countryside.</s>Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The Roman Theatre's pillared portico is shown here intact in March 2016

Militants from the Islamic State group have destroyed part of the Roman Theatre in the ancient city of Palmyra.

Syria's antiquities chief said the tetrapylon - a group of four pillared structures which were mainly modern replicas - has also been ruined.

The jihadists recaptured the Unesco-listed archaeological site in December from government troops.

The head of the UN cultural body said the destruction was "a new war crime".

Its director general, Irina Bokova, said what she described as "cultural cleansing by violent extremists" had resulted in "an immense loss for the Syrian people and for humanity".

IS destroyed other monuments after it first seized Palmyra in May 2015.

The group held the site and nearby city known locally as Tadmur for 10 months.

Interactive See the damage to the ancient ruins 10 January 2017 26 December 2016

The militants were forced out by a Russian-backed government offensive in March 2016, but regained control while pro-government forces where focused on battling for the city of Aleppo late last year.

Maamoun Abdulkarim, the head of the Syrian government's Antiquities Department, told the Associated Press that reports of the latest destruction first trickled out of Palmyra late in December, and then satellite images which became available late on Thursday confirmed it.

The US-based American Schools of Oriental Research posted the images on its Facebook page, saying only two of the tetrapylon's columns remain, and the monument appeared to have been intentionally destroyed using explosives.

Only one of the structure's columns is original, as the others were rebuilt in 1963.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Most of the pillars of the tetrapylon were reconstructed in 1963, but one was original

On Thursday, a monitoring group said IS militants had beheaded four people and shot eight others dead outside a museum close to the archaeological site.

The militants have previously carried out killings in the Roman Theatre.

When they first held the archaeological site, they blew up temples, burial towers and the Arch of Triumph, believing shrines and statues to be idolatrous.

They also destroyed the Temple of Bel - the great sanctuary of the Palmyrene gods - which had been one of the most important religious buildings of the 1st Century AD in the East.</s>Daesh militants have destroyed one of the most famous monuments in the ancient city of Palmyra, the Tetrapylon, and the facade of its Roman Theatre, Syrian antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim told Reuters on Friday.

The Assad regime lost control of Palmyra (Tadmur) to Daesh in December, the second time the terrorist group had overrun the UNESCO world heritage site in the six-year-long Syrian conflict.

The Tetrapylon, marking a junction along Palmyra's grand colonnade, comprises a raised stone platform with matching structures of four columns positioned at each of its corners.

Satellite imagery sent by Abdulkarim to Reuters showed it largely destroyed, with only four of 16 columns still standing and the stone platform apparently covered in rubble.

The imagery also showed extensive damage to monuments on the stage of the Roman Theatre, with several towering stone structures apparently also destroyed.

Abdulkarim said if Daesh remained in control of Palmyra "it means more destruction". He said the destruction took place sometime between Dec. 26 and Jan. 10, according to the satellite imagery of the site.

Daesh had previously captured Palmyra in 2015, and held it for 10 months until regime forces backed by allied militia and Russian air power managed to drive them from the city last March. However, the terrorist group recaptured the city on Dec. 11, 2016 as Assad regime pulled out its forces from the area to crush moderate opposition groups in Aleppo, which succeeded in late December amid massive civilian casualties.

During its previous spell in control of Palmyra, Daesh destroyed other monuments there, including its 1,800-year-old monumental arch. Palmyra, known in Arabic as Tadmur, stands at the crossroads of the ancient world.
ISIL militants destroy part of Palmyra's ancient Roman theatre.