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Syrian army presses ahead with offensive against IS Destruction, razed monastery left behind by IS in Syria town
(about 1 hour later)
BEIRUT — Syrian troops and allied militiamen pressed on with an offensive against Islamic State militants in central Syria on Monday, clashing with the extremists around the town of Qaryatain a day after it was captured by pro-government forces. QARYATAIN, Syria — Syrian troops fired their guns in celebration amid smoldering buildings inside the town of Qaryatain on Monday, hours after recapturing it from retreating Islamic State militants who had abducted and terrorized dozens of its Christian residents.
The push into Qaryatain took place under the cover of Russian airstrikes and dealt another setback to IS in Syria a week after the army retook the historic town of Palmyra from the group. Syria’s state news agency, SANA, said the army was fighting IS militants in areas around Qaryatain Monday, as well as in farms east and north of Palmyra. An Associated Press crew was among the first journalists to enter the town and witnessed the destruction wrought on the once-thriving Christian community and its fifth-century monastery, which was bulldozed by the extremist group last summer.
The capture of Qaryatain deprives IS of a main base in central Syria and could be used by government forces in the future to launch attacks on IS-held areas near the Iraqi border. Once a cherished pilgrimage site, much of the St. Elian monastery had been reduced to a pile of stones.
Qaryatain used to be home to a sizable Christian population and lies midway between Palmyra and the capital, Damascus. Activists said last summer that Qaryatain had a mixed population of around 40,000 Sunni Muslims and Christians, as well as thousands of internally displaced people who had fled from the nearby city of Homs. Many of the Christians fled the town after it came under attack by IS. Escorted by the Syrian government, the AP crew was allowed to venture only about three kilometers (1½ miles) inside Qaryatain, located 125 kilometers (75 miles) northeast of Damascus, because army experts were still clearing explosives and mines left by the group.
Dozens of Qaryatain’s Christians and other residents have been abducted by IS. While the town was under Islamic State control, some were released while others were made to sign pledges to pay a tax imposed on non-Muslims. Black smoke billowed from the western side of town where skirmishes continued. Near the central square, some residential and government buildings were completely destroyed, their top floors flattened. Others had gaping holes where they had taken direct artillery hits or were pock-marked by gunfire. Electricity poles and cables were broken and shredded; a snapped tree hung to one side.
Also on Monday, a senior U.S. official said the U.S. carried an airstrike on Sunday night in northwest Syria targeting a senior member of al-Qaida. He did not confirm if the al-Qaida member, named as Abu Firas al-Souri, had been killed. On Sunday, a week after taking back the historic town of Palmyra from IS, Syrian troops and their allies recaptured Qaryatain. Aided by Russian airstrikes, the advance dealt yet another setback to IS, depriving the extremists of a main base in central Syria that could eventually be used by government forces to launch attacks on IS-held areas near the Iraqi border.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the operation. Soldiers were visibly buoyed Monday by their successive battlefield victories.
The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadi websites, said Abu Firas al-Souri died in U.S. strikes while the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the jets were thought to belong to the Syrian or Russian Air Forces. It said they targeted the headquarters of Jund al-Aqsa, an extremist group that fights alongside al-Qaida’s Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front. “We will soon liberate all of Syria from the mercenaries of the Gulf and Erdogan,” said one soldier, referring to Gulf countries and the Turkish leader who have been strong supporters of the rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad.
Al-Souri was the former official spokesman for the Nusra Front, the group reported on social media Monday. Qaryatain lies midway between Palmyra and the capital, Damascus, and was once home to a sizeable Christian population. Before IS took it over last August, it had a mixed population of around 40,000 Sunni Muslims and Christians, as well as thousands of internally displaced people who had fled from the nearby city of Homs.
A 2014 biographical video about al-Souri, obtained by SITE, says he used to represent Osama bin Laden in Pakistan after he met the al-Qaida founder in Afghanistan during the jihad against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. As it came under militant attack, many of the Christians fled. More than 200 residents, mostly Christians, were abducted by the extremists, including a Syrian priest, the Rev. Jack Murad, who was held by the extremists for three months.
Al-Souri, born outside Damascus in 1949, followed the path of many Syrian jihadists. A graduate of the country’s military college, he trained jihadist cells in the country between 1977 and 1980, heading several operations against the authorities for the latter part of that period. He was expelled from the Syrian military, in part because of his Islamist ties, in 1979. During the eight months that Qaryatain was under IS control, some Christians were released and others were made to sign pledges to pay a tax imposed on non-Muslims. Some have simply vanished.
He fled to Jordan in 1980 then to Afghanistan in 1981 where he trained jihadists coming to the war-torn country from across Asia and the Arab world. He became an associate of bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a senior al-Qaida commander who led the organization’s affiliate in Iraq following the 2003 U.S. invasion. Days after the militants publicly beheaded an 81-year-old antiquities scholar in nearby Palmyra last August, the militants posted photos on social media that showed them leveling the St. Elian Monastery with bulldozers. They also trashed an ancient church next to the Assyrian Christian monastery, and desecrated a nearby cemetery, breaking the crosses and smashing name plates.
Al-Souri participated in a number of major military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan before transferring to Yemen in 2003. In 2013, the al-Qaida leadership transferred him to Syria to mend the growing rift between the group and the Islamic State. The church’s doors and windows were blown out and its interior appeared to have been used by the militants as a workshop for manufacturing bombs and booby traps, its floor littered with gas canisters, metal kettles, coffee pots and blue pails.
A media outlet belonging to the Lebanese militia Hezbollah said al-Souri’s son was also killed in the air strikes. Scrawled in blue paint on the church’s exterior stone wall was a verse from a 19th -century Egyptian poet known as the Poet of Islam: “We faced you in battle like hungry lions who find the flesh of the enemy to be the most delicious.” It was signed: “The Lions of the Caliphate.”
Hezbollah has sent thousands of its fighters to fight alongside Syrian government forces in the country’s five-year civil war. The group was reported to have lost a dozen soldiers in fierce fighting in northern Syria last weekend as jihadist groups alongside rebel militias mounted an offensive against several government positions. Another wall was sprayed with the words “Lasting and Expanding,” the Islamic State group’s logo. It was dated August 15, 2015.
A Syrian soldier showed journalists an ID apparently left behind by an IS militant from the nearby town of Mheen. It was stamped with the words “al-Dawla al-Islamiya,” or Islamic State.
The officer said the Syrian army would now turn east to capture the next IS-held town of Sukhneh, on the road between Palmyra and Deir el-Zour near the Iraqi border.
Meanwhile, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the U.S. carried out an airstrike late Sunday on a senior al-Qaida “operational meeting” in northwest Syria that resulted in “several enemy killed.” He said the U.S. believes a senior al-Qaida figure, Abu Firas al-Souri, was at the meeting and “we are working to confirm his death.”
The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadi websites, said al-Souri died in the U.S. strike, which targeted the headquarters of Jund al-Aqsa, an extremist group that fights alongside al-Qaida’s Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front. Al-Souri was the former spokesman for the Nusra Front, the group reported on social media Monday.
The strike killed at least 21 militants in Idlib province, a jihadist stronghold in northern Syria, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Military officials said over the weekend that the U.S. killed an Islamic State fighter who was believed to be directly connected to the attack in Iraq that killed Marine Staff Sgt. Louis F. Cardin about a week ago. Cardin, of Temecula, California, was killed by rocket fire at a base near Makhmour.
Cook said Monday that Jasim Khadijah, a former Iraqi officer and a member of the Islamic State group, “played a role in the rocket attacks” that killed Cardin.
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Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report. Associated Press writers Zeina Karam in Beirut and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.