When Syrian forces entered the ancient city of Palmyra on March 27, they heralded a victory not for the US or the NATO forces, but for their hated adversaries -- Bashar al Assad and Vladimir Putin. The 10-month occupation of Palmyra by the so-called Islamic State (IS) came to an end with coordinated efforts by forces loyal to Syrian President Assad and the arms and ammunitions provided by the Russian army and surveillance from Russian space satellites and air force.

Since the Islamic State still holds ground in cities such as Raqqa, Deir Ezzor, and Mosul, the Syrian army cannot claim to have wiped the IS out.

Now the question arises about the significance of Palmyra and its historical importance. Palmyra is said to be a word of Semitic origin and in Arabic the same city is called Tadmor. The city is considered to be one of the last remains of the ancient Semitic civilisation which -- as the Biblical story goes -- was founded by the offspring of Shem, the son of legendary Noah.

After the great deluge of antiquity, when Noah’s Ark came to a halt at Mount Ararat -- now located near the border between Armenia and Turkey -- the legend has it that the children of Shem scattered in search of livelihood and some of them settled in and around the city of present-day Palmyra. Some historians even attribute the word ‘Shaam’ a variant of Shem, the son of Noah.

Now Palmyra remains are located in the central province of Homs, which is one of the 14 administrative units of Syria. Homs has a population of no more than two million that constitutes around ten per cent of the total population of Syria which was estimated to be somewhere between 18 to 20 million before the civil war started. This same region had also remained under Turkish occupation during the Ottoman period.

The famous Silk routes of the ancient world had many branches that connected Europe with Asia, and one of those Silk highways of yore touched Palmyra, making it a trading hub for the caravans travelling from west to east and vice versa. One of the greatest archaeological heritage that Palmyra was proud of was the Temple of Bel -- a rare marvel of Semitic civilisation that went back to thousands of years and had seen repeated reconstructions over a period of millennia. The last surviving remains were built during the Roman realm and UNESCO classified them among the world heritage that needed protection for future generations of humanity.

For Syria, Palmyra was a source of not only national pride but also of foreign exchange as it attracted hundreds of thousands tourists annually; but as soon as the Syrian civil war started the situation changed dramatically and finally Palmyra fell into the hands of IS fighters who almost razed the entire heritage to the ground. It reminded the world of the destruction that the Taliban had wrought over the giant statues of Buddha in Bamyan, Afghanistan. The Taliban had blasted these ancient carvings of Buddhist civilisation to smithereens and attributed it to their religious zeal for idol smashing.

In Palmyra, another historical building was the Temple of Baalshamin that archeologists linked with the ancient Canaanite religion. During the occupation of the Holy Roman Empire this temple was converted into a church. The Romans had also built a grand Arch of Triumph which was called in Arabic Qaus ul Nasr. This Arch was built in the third century of the Christian Era and with the Temple of Baalshamin formed a major tourist attraction. All these came under the hammer of the IS and were destroyed mercilessly by this bunch of goons.

In a way, the Taliban and the IS are of the same ilk of uncouth barbarians who are bent upon destroying all that humanity has achieved thanks to its numerous civilisations and cultures in history. These people look at history through the lens of their own sectarian beliefs and anything that does not fit into their parochial point of view is liable to be destroyed, no matter how invaluable that heritage may be for the rest of the world. The destruction of sacred mausoleums and shrines is also linked with the same obsessive-compulsive disorder.

This anti-culture and anti-civilisation streak that started in the desert of Arabia in the 18^th century -- and was fully supported by the British and American decision makers in the 19^th and 20^th centuries -- has become a fireball in the 21^st. The latest manifestation of which we have seen in Brussels, Lahore, and in Islamabad just a few days ago.

The IS, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda, all represent a destructive thinking pattern that has been nurtured in this region over the past decades. If you look at the stretch from Pakistan to Israel, you remember that not long ago almost all Muslim countries were unanimous -- or at least pretended to be unanimous -- in supporting the Palestinians and opposing Israel.

Then in the 1980s, the US President Reagan and the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher buttressed the Pakistani dictator, General Zia ul Haq who pushed this region onto the path of religious bigotry and sectarianism. The fire that he kindled soon went beyond Pakistan and Afghanistan engulfing the entire region to the Mediterranean Sea and across Africa to the Atlantic Ocean.

The fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 1996 and the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US were closely linked. When George W Bush carried the Reagan agenda forward, most of the Muslim countries followed him into the abyss. Now it is difficult to dispute the fact that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq precipitated the religious and sectarian violence the world is witnessing right now. After the toppling of Saddam Hussain, it was a given that Iraq would soon witness unprecedented sectarian violence. Shias that constituted almost 60 per cent of Iraqi population would have a Shia dominated government that would be unacceptable to Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab states.

Later events have proved that almost all Arab and non-Arab Sunni dominated governments - including Pakistan, aligned themselves ostensibly against terrorism but in actuality against the Shias, be they in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, or Yemen.  Liberal and secular Muslims who once got inspirations from the likes of Gama Abel Nasser, Hafiz al Asad, and Moammar Gadhafi, had to witness and be targets of religious and sectarian monstrosity that was created by the myopic leaders of this region fully supported by the US and other western capitalist powers.

Finally the situation reached a stage when another Shia dominated state after Iran -- i.e. Iraq -- had to be contained and that was one of the reasons why the so-called Islamic State was created that is Sunni extremist and tasked to destabilise Iraq and Syria -- one ruled by Shia majority and the other by Shia minority Alavi sect of Assad family.

This is altar of sectarian politics on which the rich historical heritage of Palmyra is being sacrificed.