Hezbollah: Fall of Palmyra Not Strategically Important

“The occupation of Tadmor city by the ISIL cannot change the (military) equations,” Sheikh Qassem said in an interview with the Beirut-based Al-Manar TV on Monday.

The Hezbollah deputy chief pointed to the West’s support for the terrorist groups in the regional countries, and said, “Were it not because of the Hezbollah presence in Syria, the terrorists groups would be in Beirut and many others regions of Lebanon now.”

He noted that the Syrian army is fighting the Takfiri terrorists in 760 locations across Syria, and said that the army is capable of safeguarding the country.

The ISIL Takfiri militants captured the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra on May 20.

Antiquities officials fear 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 to Iraq.

Last week, an Egyptian analyst underlined that the West, specially the US, is not serious in its fight against the Takfiri terrorists, saying that the recent fall of two strategic cities in Iraq and Syria to ISIL control was, rather, the result of the US-ISIL alliance.

“The simultaneous fall of Palmyra in Syria with that of Ramadi in Iraq in the presence of the anti-ISIL coalition shows that the US and the ISIL are on the same side,” Abdel Fattah Mohammad told FNA.