“It is like closing the doors after the horses have bolted,” said Amr Al-Azm, Syrian antiquities expert, when he learned that the U.S.-led coalition had bombed six anti-aircraft artillery systems and an artillery piece near Palmyra, Syria, nearly a week after the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria took both the world heritage site of Palmyra and the populated modern city Tadmur.
Experts believe that the Islamic State fighters will destroy the ancient city of Palmyra, as they have systematically razed and destroyed antiquities in the past.
Palmyra contains 2,000-year-old temples and tombs and a very famous Temple to Baal, which is particularly at risk of destruction, since the jihadis believe it is idolatrous.
The modern city, known as Tadmur, is home to 70,000 residents and tens of thousands displaced people whom “the world does not care about,” as one modern-day resident put it. “All they are interested in is the stones of ancient Palmyra.”
Islamic State supporters shared a photo of jihadis raising their black flag over a several hundred-year-old Islamic-era castle, and Syrian officials have confirmed that fighters entered a museum in Palmyra. Its priceless artifacts were removed ahead of the invasion, officials say. However, an activist told the AP militants smashed a statue that depicts residents of the ancient city.
Al-Azm said it would be virtually impossible to move the larger pieces from the museum, so he doubts that it was fully emptied. In an interview with the AP, he said the museum “housed at least two mummies, and carvings from the nearby tombs, mostly dating to the 1st, 2nd and early 3rd century.”
He added that the “real looting” will take place at the site itself. Experts believe that the Islamic State runs a lucrative, illicit black market for the priceless antiquities.
The only way to save the site is to drive the Islamic State fighters out of the area, said Al-Azm. Latest reports say Islamic State fighters have captured missile battalions between Tadmur and Damascus.
The destruction of Palmyra will be the “poster child of an [Islamic State] cultural heritage atrocity,” Maamoun Abdulkarim, the head of the Antiquities and Museums Department in Damascus, said.
