“I am seeing Palmyra being destroyed in front of my eyes,” Dr. Abdul-Karim told Reuters. “God help us in the days to come.”
ISIS’s destruction of ancient artifacts has hit a new low as the terrorist group blew up the 2,000 year old temple which was constructed to honor the Phoenician god Baalshamin.
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ISIS has claimed such ancient relics are idols and therefore must be destroyed. However, to those sane observers, these are priceless ruins of our distant ancestors.
The Syrian government is currently too weak fighting rebels to protect anything outside Damascus and the results are horrifying.
Only a handful of meters away from the Temple of Baalshamin stands a Roman amphitheater that has been used to stage disgusting mass-executions.
Let’s hope we can get ISIS under control soon to stop the bloodshed and destruction of such valuable ruins.
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From the New York Times:
Militants from the Islamic State set off explosions at a temple in the ancient ruins of Palmyra in Syria, activists and government officials said on Sunday, continuing a pattern of destruction that they have visited upon historical sites across the territory they control there and in Iraq.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist and monitoring group based in Britain, said Sunday in a statement that Islamic State fighters detonated “a large quantity of explosives” that they had arranged around the Temple of Baalshamin, one of the most grand and well-preserved structures in the sprawling complex of ruins. A government official told reporters that it was heavily damaged by the blast.
The temple stood “dozens of meters” away from a Roman amphitheater where the Islamic State held a mass execution, killing 25 prisoners, in a video released last month, the activist group said. The entire ancient city of Palmyra is a Unesco World Heritage site.
Read more at the New York Times
What should be done to protect these ancient locations aside from force? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
