US: DAESH or Assad in Palmyra, no 'great trade-off'

Replacing DAESH's rule with Syrian government troops in the city of Palmyra is not a "great trade-off," U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Thursday.While the U.S. priority in Syria is to defeat DAESH, Toner said the U.S. does not prefer Bashar Assad's "tyranny" to DAESH's "barbaric" rule.

"The Syrian people should not have to decide between DAESH and Assad," he said. "It's important to remember that one of the reasons DAESH is in Syria is because Assad's brutal crackdown on his own people created the kind of vacuum, if you will, that has allowed a group like DAESH to flourish."

Toner's comments came after reports of the Syrian army advancing into DAESH-controlled Palmyra.

The Russian-backed Syrian army has advanced into Palmyra after launching a desert offensive on the site earlier this month. The ancient city of Palmyra, known as the "Pearl of the Desert," was overrun by DAESH last May, causing global concern. The group has since blown up UNESCO-listed temples and looted relics that date back thousands of years. In September, DAESH claimed that it destroyed the Temple of Bel, which UNESCO described as one of the best preserved and most important first century religious edifices in the Middle East.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain, published a report that said Assad's government forces and pro-government militias killed 7,894 people between January and July 2015. Recent figures differ from one source to another, but analysts and monitoring groups say an estimated 250,000 people have been killed by government forces in total. Also in February, the head of the opposition-linked Syrian High Negotiations Committee (HNC), Riyad Hijab, said the Syrian regime, Russia, Iran and other foreign armed units were continuing attacks on Syrians despite the agreement to cease hostilities on Feb. 27 entering into force.

In the first week of March, the U.S. State Department said that it was concerned about reports of Syrian government tank and artillery attacks on civilians in several areas as well as the possible use of chemical weapons.

According to the U.N., Syria's five-year civil war has left at least 250,000 dead and more than 11 million displaced, leading to DAESH's rise and sparking a refugee crisis.

Meanwhile, head of the HNC delegation to the Geneva talks, Asaad az-Zoubi, said on Tuesday that two militia units from North Korea were fighting for the Assad regime in Syria. "Two North Korean units are there, which are Chalma-1 and Chalma-7," Zoubi said, according to Russia's TASS news agency.

Zoubi reported that several Iranian and Afghan nationals were also supporting the regime troops though claiming themselves to be "pilgrims."

A second round of talks in Geneva aims to end the war after the first round ended abruptly last month amid a Syrian regime military offensive backed by Russian air power.

Later, the U.S. and Russia agreed on a cessation of hostilities that saw a dramatic reduction in fighting.

Russia has been conducting air raids in Syria since Sept. 30. Moscow recently began reducing its military presence in Syria after President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial pullout of Russian aircraft and forces in support of indirect peace talks in Geneva. Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah militias are also fighting alongside Assad's forces.