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Isis seizes Palmyra - live updates: Militants behead men as ancient city falls to terror group

Thousands of years worth of cultural heritage are now at risk of destruction

Heather Saul
Thursday 21 May 2015 19:52 BST
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Isis militants have taken full control of the ancient site of Palmyra in central Syria, activists have claimed.

This is what we know so far:

Isis fighters kill nine children near ancient site
Syria urges international community to save Palmyra
The ancient city that stands for empire and resistance

Please allow a moment for the live blog to load.

The terror group launched an offensive earlier this week and overran the 2,000-year-old Unesco World Heritage Site shortly after midnight, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Palmyra contains world famous artefacts and monuments that Unesco fears will be bulldozed by militants, who have already razed ancient Assyrian and Roman-era sites to the ground.

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