in "The New York Times"

MIDDLE EAST
Frantic Message as Palmyra, Syria, Fell: ‘We’re Finished’


By ANNE BARNARD and HWAIDA SAADMAY 21, 2015
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The Ancient Syrian City of Palmyra
The Ancient Syrian City of Palmyra

CreditSergey Ponomarev for The New York Times


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BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Syrian Army soldier had long served in Palmyra, but he was on leave when he heard that Islamic State militants had attacked a village northeast of the desert city, killing dozens of his comrades. He sent frantic text messages, trying to reach them. No one answered.

He shared his anguish last week in a series of texts as he slowly pieced together bits of the story from survivors of the massacre. Soldiers told him they had run out of ammunition. One officer radioed to headquarters, “We’re finished.” Worst of all, the soldier said, was the photograph he was shown of the decapitated body of a friend, the 19-year-old daughter of a Syrian general.
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Within a matter of days this week, the Islamic State, also called ISIS or ISIL, seized with apparent ease the cities of Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra inSyria, in both cases seemingly coming out of nowhere to rout government forces. On Thursday, the militants were digging in, consolidating their grip and executing people with ties to the old order.


NEWS CLIPS By Reuters 00:43Unesco Chief Urges Protection of PalmyraContinue reading the main storyVideo
Unesco Chief Urges Protection of Palmyra


Irina Bokova, the director general of Unesco, on Thursday called for a cease-fire in and around Palmyra, the central Syrian city that fell to ISIS on Wednesday and contains important ancient ruins.By Reuters on Publish DateMay 21, 2015. Photo by Reuters.

Yet a closer look at the two battles shows the group following a longer-term strategy, in both cases biding its time, taking territory mainly from other insurgent groups. Then, after years of war, attrition and corruption had left the government forces demoralized and, particularly in Syria, hollowed out, it attacked, overrunning them.

Palmyra was a place where tensions had long simmered, a mainly Sunni tribal city where a local rebellion was put down early in the war, and where relations between residents and security forces were complex. A young officer serving there from the Alawite heartland had confessed a year earlier that he felt no connection to the population and feared residents would kill him the first chance they had.

Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, Iraq’s Sunni heartland, was also divided in its loyalties.

Those problems were on display in Palmyra before and during Wednesday’s rout. Residents were caught between the latest Islamic State onslaught and what sometimes seemed like a haphazard government response. The scenes of chaos that unfolded belied the Syrian state news media’s claim that government forces had withdrawn only after taking families to safety.Continue reading the main story
GRAPHIC
How ISIS Captured Ramadi

Just days after seizing Ramadi, ISIS captures Palmyra, Syria.

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Residents — supporters and opponents of President Bashar al-Assad — described officers fleeing, leaving civilians and lowly conscript soldiers to fend for themselves. One business owner said he watched pro-government militiamen run helter-skelter into orchards, not sure where to retreat. “Treason,” he called it.

Residents videotaped airstrikes coming close to the town’s medieval citadel and wondered why the militants had not been bombed earlier — by the government or, for that matter, by the United States-led coalition waging a parallel air war against them — while they were traversing miles of open desert roads.

But most of all, they said, they had lost any sense that the government could provide safety even to its loyalists. On Thursday, after the militants had taken over the city and begun executing people they deemed close to the government, many residents cowered in their houses and basements, terrified of militants in the streets and of government shelling and airstrikes from the sky.


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Some found it ominous that the state news media had incorrectly declared that most civilians had been evacuated, perhaps an excuse to increase airstrikes.Photo

A vehicle left behind as the Islamic State took Palmyra from Syrian government forces. CreditReuters

“I can foresee the regime bombarding the town massively, especially after the huge loss among its soldiers,” said Khaled al-Homsi, a member of the committee that organized anti-government protests in Palmyra in 2011, before anyone imagined full-blown civil war, let alone a group like the Islamic State.

“The civilians are terrified,” he said. “The only bakery is controlled by ISIS. The army is bombing randomly.”

Mr. Homsi, 32, a former hotel worker who uses a nom de guerre for safety, said he was nervous that the militants would seek revenge against him and other activists who oppose them and the government.

“I’m happy that Palmyra was liberated from the regime, but not happy it fell under Daesh control,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “In my view, as an activist, it is not a liberation.”


NEWS CLIPS By Reuters 00:48Some Relics Safe, Syrian Official SaysContinue reading the main storyVideo
Some Relics Safe, Syrian Official Says


The Syrian antiquities chief, Maamoun Abdulkarim, said Wednesday that while many artifacts from Palmyra had been moved to safety, the question remained how to protect the site from ISIS. By Reuters on Publish DateMay 21, 2015. Photo by Reuters.

In a rare wartime visit to Palmyra a year ago, New York Times reporters met a range of people, who have kept in touch. In recent days, they provided a play-by-play view of the chaos, emotion and uncertainty there as the militants rolled in.

Khalil al-Hariri, an archaeologist who keeps his hair dyed shoe-polish black, fled his house on the northern edge of the city, which had become the front line, while his colleagues scurried to cart away ancient artifacts from the museum. On Palmyra’s few shopping streets, metal gates rolled down, shuttering businesses like the Zenobia Café, named for a legendary queen of ancient Palmyra. Omar, a fellow activist of Mr. Homsi’s, began erasing computer files that he thought the militants would find incriminating. Mr. Homsi said he had nothing to hide. Poking fun at the Islamic State’s ban on smoking, he said, “I’ll hide my cigarettes.”

Ahmed, who owns an antiquities shop near the museum, said on Wednesday that his family had packed their bags to leave town. But, he said, “The government is not allowing us.”Continue reading the main story
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Expecting to head to Palmyra with reinforcements, the soldier, who is 27 and comes from a Sunni family, sent a photograph — maybe his last, he warned. But the roads were blocked. A cousin serving in Palmyra told him: “Stay where you are. God loves you.” The soldier asked not to be further identified out of fears for the safety of he and his family.Continue reading the main story

Graphic: How ISIS Expands

After the militants took control, Mr. Hariri, the archaeologist, reached again by phone, said that he had left with about four people. Nevertheless, he said, “most of the civilians are still there.” He paused. “What can I say? The situation is really bad.”

Another business owner spluttered in anger, “This is the army’s fault.” He was out of town when the assault came, but was unable to get his parents out.

He said his parents had reported militants’ issuing a call from the minarets for people to hand over any soldiers or government workers. Yet, at the same time, the militants were fanning out through the city to offer services. “They are even handing out bread, god forbid,” he said.


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By Thursday night, several dozen people had been publicly executed, residents said.

For Mr. Homsi, the day’s events had presented him with a new power to revolt against. “We will face and confront the destruction of the town’s history and heritage,” he said. “The revolution was and will remain my life. We won’t accept oppression from anyone.”

As for the soldier, he had lived through bloody battles, but none had shaken him like the deaths of his comrades. (Thirty-five soldiers were buried in the provincial capital of Homs on Thursday alone, a resident who lives near the hospital there said.)

“I wish I were not a soldier, but a civilian living normal life, married with children,” he confessed on Wednesday. His situation, he said, reminded him of a line from the beloved damascene poet Nizar Qabbani: “Love me... away from the lands of oppression and repression, away from our city which has had its fill of death.”

Then he headed off to try once more to reach the front. He has not texted since.