Over the past few days there has been some uncertainty about the capture of Palmyra from ISIL militants. Here is a map showing what the situation was thought to be Saturday evening:
As can be seen, most of the city is still in the hands of ISIL. The fact that it is Russian airstrikes which is facilitating this advance leaves the official US position on this totally unclear. In a war which many regard as one which Washington is are co-responsible for starting and fuelling, the US position is now getting increasingly ambiguous as larger areas of territory come back under control of the regime they tried to topple by a proxy war.
Also, how embarrassing for the Department-of-State-supported stories of ISIL looting supporting US bombing raids that the initial aerial shots of this prime site show it has not been riddled with looters' holes, and many of the lapidaria in the ruins seem to be in the same state as satellite photos show from before the city was taken by ISIL. The ruins were too far from the original position of the front line for this to be explicable as the result of fear of sniper fire from Syrian forces on high ground to the west and the lack of looters holes on a site like this is interesting.
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