WASHINGTON

 Replacing Daesh's rule with Syrian President Bashar Assad's troops in the city of Palmyra is not a "great trade-off", a U.S. State Department spokesman said Thursday.

While the U.S. priority in Syria was to defeat Daesh, U.S. State Department's spokesman Mark Toner said, the U.S. did not prefer Daesh's "barbaric" rule to Assad's "tyranny".

"The Syrian people should not have to decide between ISIL [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 ISIL or Daesh to flourish."

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

The Russian-backed Syrian army has advanced into Palmyra after launching a desert offensive to the location earlier this month.

Daesh had been controlling Palmyra since last May.