ISIL enters Palmyra city limits in Syria: Monitor

Jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) entered the northern city limits of ancient Palmyra May 20, seizing a state security building after intense fighting, a monitor said.  

"The jihadists are once again in the north of Tadmur, after taking over the state security building," Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP, using Palmyra's Arabic name.
 
"They also seized a checkpoint in the same area," he said.    

ISIL's new advance comes after fierce clashes with Syrian government forces May 20 on the northern and eastern edges of Palmyra.    

On May 16, ISIL seized most of Palmyra's northern neighbourhoods, but was pushed out by regime forces less than 24 hours later.
 
Fighting on May 20 raged near security buildings in northern Palmyra, and close to the city's notorious prison in the east.    

The jihadist offensive on world heritage site Palmyra began on May 13 and has since left more than 350 people dead.
 
Mohammad, an activist originally from Palmyra, told AFP that the city was suffering from water shortages and intermittent electricity.
 
"A large number of people from the city's north have been displaced into other neighbourhoods. Some are sleeping in the streets," he said.    

On May 18, ISIL jihadists seized two gas fields north of Palmyra that the regime had been using to generate electricity for areas under its control.    

Antiquities officials fear that ISIL wants to destroy Palmyra's pre-Islamic cultural treasures, which include colonnaded streets and ancient citadels.
 
The city is also strategically located at the crossroads of key highways leading west to Damascus and Homs, and east...