Fears after IS mines Palmyra

DAMASCUS: The Islamic State group have mined the spectacular ancient ruins in Syria’s Palmyra, an antiquities official and monitor said on Sunday, prompting fears for the Unesco World Heritage site.
The reports came one month after the extremist group overran the central Syrian city.Syria’s antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said that the group had laid mines and explosives in Palmyra’s Greco-Roman ruins.
The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources on the ground, said the explosives were laid on Saturday.“But it is not known if the purpose is to blow up the ruins or to prevent regime forces from advancing into the town,” said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
He said regime forces had launched heavy air strikes against the residential part of Palmyra in the past three days, killing at least 11 people.“The regime forces are to the west outside the city, and in recent days they have brought in reinforcements suggesting they may be planning an operation to retake Palmyra,” he added.A political source told AFP that a leading commander had been dispatched to the region to organise an offensive to recapture and secure Palmyra and several key gas fields nearby.