Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) have reportedly carpeted parts of the Roman amphitheatre with bombs and explosives, according to Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria's antiquities chief.
It was not immediately clear whether the the mines had been lain in preparation for the ruins’ destruction, or as a deterrent to forces loyal to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. The militants seized the strategically important nearby modern town of Tadmur from government forces last month.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which draws on a network of monitors inside the country, said on Sunday that regime forces had brought reinforcements to the west of the city in recent days, possibly in preparation for a fresh assault on the city.
It also said they had also launched heavy air strikes over Tadmur in the past three days, killing at least 11 people.
A former resident still in contact with relatives inside the city told the Telegraph that masked jihadists had announced their intention to rig Palmyra with explosives earlier in the week, delivering the message to residents gathered in the main market square. “We will accelerate pressure on the regime, and push the international community to stop them from shelling civilians,” one of the militants reportedly said.
Bebars al-Talawy, a Homs-based activist in contact with Tadmur residents, described the ancient ruins as lying “between the hammer and the anvil, one belonging to the regime, the other to Isil.”
The destruction of Palmyra’s 2,000 year old ruins would deal the heaviest blow to Syria’s cultural heritage in a four year-long war.
Palmyra has been looted by government forces, damaged in fighting, and last week, a section of its north defensive wall was hit by a regime airstrike.
Tadmur’s fall had prompted fears that the extremist group would seek to destroy Palmyra's Unesco world heritage-listed ruins, as it has done with similar sites elsewhere in Syria and Iraq. But they had apparently left it untouched to date, in an attempt to curry favour with local residents over whom the jihadists are now consolidating their rule.
Instead, the amphitheatre has been revived as a stage from which the jihadists are underscoring their reign of terror. In late May, local residents were invited to the site to watch the execution of twenty people accused of being regime supporters.
Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria's head of antiquities department, told Reuters on Sunday that the claim that militants were laying explosives there "seems true". "The city is a hostage in their hands, the situation is dangerous," he said.
Unesco has previously expressed deep concern over reports of fighting around Palmyra, a site that once sat at the heart of the third century Queen Zenobia’s empire. Its sand-coloured ruins include colonnaded streets and the temple of Baal, a deity worshipped in many ancient Middle Eastern communities.
Syria’s civil war has all but turn the country apart. More than 230,000 Syrians have died since Mr Assad’s forces first sought to suppress anti-government protests in March 2011. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, the war has seen 56 major massacres to date, 49 of which were carried out by government forces or allied militia.
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By Louisa Loveluck and Magdy Samaan- from Cairo http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11689694/Isil-lay-mines-in-Syrias-ancient-Palmyra-ruins.html
Photo: A flag of the Islamic State (IS) group fluttering atop the circular wall bounding the orchestra at the Roman theatre of the ancient city of Palmyra Photo: AFP