Islamic State of Iraq and Syria militants have recaptured the ancient city of Palmyra, Syria, after briefly taking and then losing the world heritage site this weekend.
“They are everywhere,” a 26-year-old resident told CNN on condition of anonymity.
The Islamic State controls the airport, prison and intelligence HQ, reports the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The modern city, known as Tadmur, is home to 70,000 residents and tens of thousands displaced people whom “the world does not care about,” as one modern-day resident put it. “All they are interested in is the stones of ancient Palmyra.”
The ancient city of Palmyra, dating from the 1st and 2nd century, is considered one of the most important cultural centers of the ancient world by UNESCO.
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Since Islamic State jihadists are renowned for their destruction of world history, international attention has focused on whether Palmyra will suffer the same fate.
“If [the Islamic State] enters Palmyra, it will spell its destruction,” said Syria’s director of antiquities, Mamoun Abdulkarim, to Agence France-Presse last week. “If the ancient city falls, it will be an international catastrophe.”
“It will be a repetition of the barbarism and savagery which we saw in Nimrud, Hatra and Mosul,” he said.
“We must save Palmyra,” said Irina Bokova, UNESCO Director-General, in a statement Thursday. The site, a 1st century A.D. desert oasis, “suffered from looting and represents an irreplaceable treasure for the Syrian people and the world. I appeal to all parties to protect Palmyra and make every effort to prevent its destruction.”
While some have suggested that the Islamic State is motivated to capture world headlines by destroying the ancient site, the modern day city is strategically important on its own.
Palmyra is located close to oil and gas fields and an important road that connects the Syrian capital, Damascus, with the embattled eastern city of Deir al-Zor.
The people in Syria think “the West cares more about the civilization than about the people who created or initiated this civilization,” a Syrian activist told the BBC. Approximately a quarter million Syrians have died and 6.5 million been displaced in a brutal civil war that has ravaged the country since the 2011 “Arab Spring.”
