Antiquities director warns that ISIS could destroy the ancient city of Palmyra, Syria

Islamic State fighters are just about a mile away from the remains of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, and officials are concerned that they will destroy it if given the opportunity.

"ISIS has not entered the city yet, and we hope these barbarians will never enter," Syria's director of antiquities, Mamoun Abdulkarim, told Agence France-Presse. Abdulkarim said that Syrian troops are fighting ISIS militants just outside the gates to Palmyra, a UNESCO heritage site with temples from the first and second centuries and structures with Greco-Roman and Persian influences. There is an adjacent museum with items found during digs, and while Abdulkarim said they can be safeguarded, "we cannot protect the architecture, the temples. ISIS will just destroy it from the outside."

Palmyra was under rebel control in 2013, and the Temple of Baal was slightly damaged from artillery exchanges. The rebels did not attempt to destroy the historical site like ISIS has done to similar places in Iraq, and Abdulkarim warns that "if the ancient city falls, it will be an international catastrophe. It will be a repetition of the barbarism and savagery which we saw in Nimrud, Hatra, and Mosul."

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