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Inside Palmyra: IS Video Shows Group's Takeover

A video posted on a militant website has shown Islamic State fighters arriving at the Syrian city of Palmyra, after the terrorist group took control of it earlier this week.

The fighters are shown driving under a road sign with directions to Palmyra, Iraq, and Syria's capital Damascus, before passing dozens of abandoned and ruined houses.

A small group of residents is shown venturing onto the street to get a look at the fighters before the video cuts to a larger group of people.

One of the militants shouts in Arabic: "Islamic State" with the residents responding: "Will stay".

They are later shown gathered around the dead bodies of soldiers who apparently died in the fight to save the city.

"Let all the residents see them," one of the men in the gathering tells an IS fighter.

The militants are shown exploring what is thought to be the main hospital in Tadmur, the town adjoining the ancient Palmyra ruins.

Posters of the country's leaders are shown with their faces ripped out, broken glass is strewn across the floor and the hospital's beds are empty.

Homs-based activist Bebars al Talawy said as many as 280 soldiers and pro-government forces have been killed since Palmyra was captured on Wednesday.

IS fighters kidnapped soldiers and pro-government gunmen from homes, shops and other places where they were hiding and many were shot dead in the streets, he said.

IS fighters reportedly used loudspeakers to warn residents against sheltering troops, leading many to come forward to turn the troops in.

Maamoun Abdulkarim, head of the Antiquities and Museum Department in Damascus, said IS fighters were "moving in residential areas, terrifying people and taking revenge", adding that there had been "arrests and liquidations".

Mr Abdulkarim said no gunmen had yet been seen in the area of Palmyra's 2,000-year-old ruins, however.

It is feared IS will destroy the site, having already destroyed other similar antiquities, such as the ancient monuments in Nimrud, near the Iraqi city of Mosul.