Syria conflict: IS advances on ancient ruins of Palmyra

Rising out of the Syrian desert, Palmyra contains the monumental ruins of a great city

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Palmyra, one of the archaeological jewels of the Middle East, is reported to be under threat from advancing Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria.

The jihadists are within 2km (1.2 miles) of Unesco World Heritage site the battling government forces for control of the adjacent town of Tadmur.

Syria's antiquities chief has warned that if IS seizes Palmyra it will destroy everything that exists there.

The group has ransacked and demolished several ancient sites in Iraq.

Palmyra has already suffered some damage during the four-year civil war.

It is situated in a strategically important area on the road between the capital, Damascus and the contested eastern city of Deir al-Zour, and close to gas fields.

'International catastrophe'

On Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that IS militants were mounting an assault on Tadmur, the modern town next to the ruins of Palmyra.

The government-controlled area is close to gas fields and lies on a key road

Palmyra has already suffered some damage during the four-year civil war

The UK-based activist group's director, Rami Abdul Rahman, told the AFP news agency that the jihadists had taken all the army posts between Tadmur and al-Sukhanah, a town to the north-east, after a lightning advance across the desert.

Twenty-six civilians in a village outside Tadmur were summarily killed by IS - at least 10 by beheading - on Thursday after being accused of collaborating with President Bashar al-Assad's government, Mr Abdul Rahman said.

IS itself claimed on Twitter that it had already taken control of northern and eastern parts of Tadmur, and that it had shot down a Syrian air force MiG jet in the area.

The Temple of Baal is the most complete structure left in Palmyra

The local museum contains busts and reliefs from Palmyra's many funerary towers

Homs provincial governor Talal Barazi confirmed that al-Sukhanah had fallen on Wednesday and said 1,800 families from the town were sheltering in Tadmur.

The Syrian Observatory said more than 70 soldiers and 40 militants had been killed in the battle for al-Sukhanah, among them IS religious official Anas al-Nashwan, who appeared in a video last month showing the beheading of Ethiopian Christians in Libya.

Rising out of the desert and flanked by an oasis, Palmyra contains the monumental ruins of a great city that was one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world, according to Unesco.

The site, most of which dates back to the 1st to the 2nd Century when the region was under Roman rule, is dominated by a grand, colonnaded street.

At the southern end of the 1.1km street is the great temple of Baal, considered one of the most important religious buildings of the 1st Century in the East and of unique design.

Syria's director of antiquities, Maamoun Abdul Karim, said he had no doubt that if Palmyra were to fall to IS, it would suffer a similar fate to the ancient sites in northern Iraq recently blown up by the group.

Islamic State published a video last month showing the ancient site of Nimrud being blown up

"If IS enters Palmyra, it will spell its destruction," he told AFP. "If the ancient city falls, it will be an international catastrophe."

"It will be a repetition of the barbarism and savagery which we saw in Nimrud,Hatra and Mosul," Mr Abdul Karim added.

A US-led coalition against Islamic State has carried out air strikes on the jihadist group's positions in Syria since September. However, it says it does not co-ordinate its actions with the Assad government.