ISIS Takes Ancient City It Will Destroy

ISIS fighters have taken control of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra along with its 2,000-year-old ruins, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group. The group said Thursday there are no reports of destruction, but ISIS has previously destroyed ancient cultural sites in Nimrud and smashed artifacts in a museum in Mosul. Pro-government forces have been pulled out of the city, Syrian state media reported. ISIS posted on Twitter it had taken complete control of the city, including its military installations. According to The New York Times, “the fact that the Islamic State group… has been able to advance into Palmyra, five days after seizing Ramadi, in the Iraqi province of Anbar, demonstrates its ability to carry out complex operations simultaneously on multiple fronts, in the face of pitched resistance on the ground and from the air.”