Homs Governorate

At the height of the Islamic State group's rampage across Syria, the world watched in horror as the militants blew up an iconic arch and temple in the country's famed Roman ruins in Palmyra.

Eight years later, restoration work on the site has been held up by security issues, leftover ISIL land mines and lack of funding.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday that Islamic State killed at least 128 people in a Syrian town in central Homs over a three-week period before the Syrian army recaptured it on Saturday.

There was no immediate comment from Syrian government officials or state media on the report by the Observatory, a Britain-based war monitor.

Illustration - Photo: Al-Alam

BELGRADE - Syrian government forces managed to evacuate some 80 percent of Palmyra population, the fate of the rest is cause for concerns, Homs Governor Talal Barazi announced.

"Some 80 percent of Palmyra residents have been evacuated, we are concerned with the fate of those who are remaining there," Barazi said in a statement on Sunday.

When two Polish heritage experts first restored the famed lion statue in Syria's Palmyra in 2005, they never imagined they would see it smashed to pieces only a decade later.    

B92 reporter Aleksandra Godfroa is in Palmyra and will over the next week file reports from this Syrian town.

Syria's antiquities chief said on March 28 that his department would need five years to restore the ancient ruins of Palmyra damaged by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), while Syrian government forces backed by Russian air strikes battled ISIL around Palmyra, trying to extend their gains.

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) extremists have blown up the famous Arch of Triumph in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, the country's head of antiquities said Oct.5, as the jihadists press their campaign to tear down the treasured heritage site.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadist group has blown up parts of the Temple of Bel in Syria's ancient city of Palmyra, a monitor and activists said.

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants on Aug. 23 blew up the ancient temple of Baal Shamin in the UNESCO-listed Syrian city of Palmyra, an official said, the latest in a series of cultural relics to be destroyed by the jihadist group.

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants have destroyed an ancient monastery in the central Syrian province of Homs, according to a monitor and pictures published by the jihadist group.