Piece by piece, Islamic terrorists are destroying the world’s most ancient treasures. THE HOPE is that public outrage will grow to rival the fervor held by the extremists and will lead to their ultimate destruction. That day can not come soon enough.
Considered the cradle of civilization, the Middle East is being pillaged by Islamic State extremists who regard the preservation of the region’s relics as paganism because they were built before Islam was founded about 2,000 years ago.
On Sunday, IS activists blew up a temple in the ancient ruins of Palmyra. On Friday, terrorists used bullozers to plunder a 1,500-year-old site.
Earlier in the week 83-year-old antiquities scholar Khaled al-Asaad was beheaded for his refusal to divulge where valuable artifacts in Palmyra, Syria, had been moved for safekeeping. The city’s famed 2,000-year-old ruins are a UNESCO World Heritage site that includes Roman tombs and the Temple of Bel.
Al-Asaad’s mutilated body was hung on the public square as a reminder that the jihadists are not bound by a code of ethics.
The terrorists also sell confiscated artifacts to help fund their terrorist activities.
In June, IS militants bulldozed Hatra, a well-preserved complex of temples in Iraq, also a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Officials with the United Nations fittingly consider such destruction of ancient relics as “war crimes,” but the designation, no surprise, does little to deter the radicals bent on pillaging the ancient treasures.
— Susan Lynn
IS terrorists pillaging the world’s treasures
