Khaled al-Asaad had spent more than fifty years as head of antiquities in Palmyra. He was 83 years old when ISIS fighters arrived in his city. Three months after the fall of Palmyra, they beheaded him in a public square and hung his body from a column among the ruins he had devoted his life to protecting. His killing, on 18 August 2015, distilled into one act the savagery of an offensive that had consumed Palmyra in just thirteen days that May -- an offensive that gave ISIS control of over half of Syria and placed one of the ancient world's greatest trading cities in the hands of men who considered its monuments idolatrous.
The offensive began on 13 May 2015, when ISIS launched a two-pronged advance from positions northeast of Palmyra. Their first target was Al-Sukhnah, a town on the strategic highway linking Homs to the Deir ez-Zor Governorate. Militants captured checkpoints at the northern entrance, then pushed into the town itself, fighting at the police station, the Ba'ath Party headquarters, and the National Hospital. The fall of Al-Sukhnah sent panic through Palmyra, 55 kilometers to the southwest. Civilians understood what was coming. Over the following days, ISIS seized every Syrian Army post between Al-Sukhnah and Palmyra, advancing steadily despite counter-offensives and airstrikes. Reinforcements from the special forces unit Suqur al-Sahara arrived but could not hold the perimeter. The nearby village of Amiriya changed hands multiple times in brutal fighting.
By 20 May, ISIS had captured a third of Palmyra. Government forces fell back, losing the airbase by evening. State television claimed the Syrian Army had evacuated civilians during the retreat. Residents told a different story: that officers fled ahead of their own conscripts and militias, leaving soldiers and civilians to fend for themselves. The government later retracted its evacuation claim as refugees poured out of the bombardment zone. On 21 May, ISIS fighters entered the ancient ruins -- a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1980, the remains of a desert oasis that had once linked the civilizations of Persia, India, and China to the Roman Empire through trade. The offensive was the largest ISIS had conducted in Syria since its 2014 Eastern Syria campaign, and its success gave the group control over at least 50 percent of Syrian territory.
The mass executions began before the city had fully fallen. On 14 May, ISIS killed 26 civilians in Amiriya and Al-Sukhnah for "dealing with the regime" -- ten of them by beheading. The next day, another 23 civilians were executed in Amiriya. Nine were children. After Palmyra fell on 22 May, opposition sources reported that ISIS had killed between 150 and 280 government loyalists and soldiers in the streets. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights documented 168 dead, with another 600 soldiers and civilians detained. According to one Syrian soldier, ISIS beheaded the 19-year-old daughter of a general. On 30 May, ISIS destroyed the notorious Tadmor Prison, a facility that had been a symbol of state brutality under the Assad government -- erasing one horror while perpetrating others.
Through the summer, ISIS consolidated its hold and pushed further, capturing Al-Qaryatayn in August and abducting 230 civilians, including at least 60 Christians. By November, militants had reached the outskirts of Salamiyah and were threatening to advance on Homs itself. Strategic analysts noted that the Syrian government was being squeezed between ISIS in the east and Army of Conquest gains in the north, forced to choose which battles it could still afford to fight. The Palmyra offensive had demonstrated that the government could no longer maintain even nominal control across all of Syria's provinces. It took until March 2016, supported by Russian airstrikes, for the Syrian Army to launch a counter-offensive and recapture Palmyra on 27 March. By then, the Temple of Baalshamin, the Temple of Bel, the tower tombs, and the Monumental Arch had all been destroyed.
Located at 34.56°N, 38.27°E in central Syria's desert. Palmyra sits roughly 215 km northeast of Damascus. The modern town of Tadmur is adjacent to the archaeological ruins visible from altitude. The highway from Homs to Deir ez-Zor passes through this area -- the same route ISIS used in its advance. Nearest operational airfield is T4/Tiyas Airbase (OSTY), approximately 60 km west. Terrain is flat desert with scattered oases; visibility is generally excellent except during sandstorms.