Isis beheads elderly chief of antiquities in ancient Syrian city, official says

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Isis beheads elderly chief of antiquities in ancient Syrian city, official says

Reuters
Tuesday 18 August 2015 22.50 BST

Islamic State militants beheaded an antiquities scholar in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra and hung his body on a column in a main square of the historic site, Syria’s antiquities chief said on Tuesday.

Isis, whose insurgents control swathes of Syria and Iraq, captured Palmyra in central Syria from government forces in May, but is not known to have damaged its monumental Roman-era ruins despite a reputation for destroying artefacts militants view as idolatrous under their puritanical interpretation of Islam.

Syrian state antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim said the family of Khaled Asaad had informed him that the 82-year-old scholar who worked for over 50 years as head of antiquities in Palmyra was killed by Isis on Tuesday.

Asaad had been detained and interrogated for over a month by the ultra-radical Sunni Muslim militants, Abdulkarim told Reuters.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/18/isis-beheads-archaeologist-syria

[Cleita]

1. This is sickening. I have no words. eom

[Syzygy321]

2. I guess torturing and killing old folks is fun

when you're a power-mad religious psychotic.

[brooklynite]

4. UPDATE-Beheaded Syrian scholar refused to lead Isis to hidden Palmyra antiquities

Islamic State militants beheaded a renowned antiquities scholar in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra and hung his mutilated body on a column in a main square of the historic site because he apparently refused to reveal to his Isis captors where valuable artefacts had been removed for safekeeping.

The brutal murder of Khaled al-Asaad, 82, is the latest atrocity perpetrated by the extremist jihadi group, which has captured a third of both Syria and neighbouring Iraq and declared a self-styled “caliphate” on the territory it controls. It has also highlighted Isis’s habit of looting and selling antiquities to fund its activities - as well as destroying them.

Syrian state antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim said that Asaad’s family had informed him that the scholar, who worked for over 50 years as head of antiquities in Palmyra, was killed by Isis on Tuesday.

Asaad had been held for over a month before being murdered. Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, said he had learned from a Syrian source that the archaeologist had been interrogated by Isis about the location of treasures from Palmyra and had been executed when he refused to cooperate.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/18/isis-beheads-archaeologist-syria

I know an archaeologist based in Aleppo; hoping he got out before ISIS moved into the area.