Militants kill 400 in Palmyra
Islamic State fighters have killed at least 400 people in Syria's ancient city of Palmyra, most of them women and children, Syrian state television said yesterday.
It said it was quoting residents inside the city, which is known as Tadmur in Arabic and is home to renowned Roman-era ruins including well-preserved temples, colonnades and a theatre.
Opposition activists have said on social media that hundreds of bodies were in the streets of the city after it was seized by the ultra hardline group on Wednesday. They said they were believed to be government loyalists.
Meanwhile, ISIS took full control of a border crossing between Iraq and Syria yesterday, tightening its grip on the heart of its self-proclaimed caliphate.
The move gave ISIS control of the two main roads between Syria and Iraq's province of Anbar, as the jihadists pressed their most devastating offensive in months.
The latest success came a week after ISIS captured the Iraqi city of Ramadi and days after it seized the historic Syrian city of Palmyra, two of the group's most significant military victories in almost a year.
The jihadists seized Al-Walid border post early yesterday when Iraqi government forces pulled back to a nearby crossing with Jordan. IS had taken the Syrian side of the crossing on Thursday.
The surge by a group described as the most violent in modern jihad raised further questions about the efficiency of the US-led coalition's eight-month air campaign.
Coalition warplanes have conducted more than 3,000 strikes in Iraq and Syria since August 2014 and dozens more were carried out in recent days in a bid to contain the rampant jihadists.
Pentagon chief Ashton Carter yesterday said that Iraqi forces "failed to fight" in Ramadi.
Carter said the city fell to the militants because Iraqi forces -- despite strength in numbers -- did not have the will to fight.
"We can give them training and we can give them equipment and we can't obviously give them the will to fight," he said.
Swift action was seen as essential to prevent ISIS from laying booby traps across Ramadi, which would make any advance in the city more risky and complicated.
Meanwhile, General John F Campbell the commander of Nato in Afghanistan yesterday said ISIS is recruiting fighters in Afghanistan but they are not yet operational in the country.
There have been fears of ISIS group making inroads in Afghanistan since US-led Nato forces ended their combat mission late last year, after 13 years of fighting insurgents.
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