WAR ON HISTORY
Militants destroying heritage sites
ISIL on Friday demolished a monastery founded more than 1,500 years ago in central Syria, near a town where the extremists abducted dozens of Christians earlier this month, activists and a Christian priest said.
The destruction of the Saint Elian Monastery near the town of Qaryatain comes days after ISIL militants in the town of Palmyra publicly beheaded an 81-year-old antiquities scholar who had dedicated his life to studying and overseeing Palmyra’s iconic ancient ruins.
The developments have stoked concerns that ISIL may be accelerating its campaign to destroy and loot non-Islamic and pre-Islamic heritage sites inside the vast swaths of Iraq and Syria currently controlled by the militant group.
“I think we are worried about almost all the heritage sites in Syria. Nothing is safe,” said Irina Bokova, director general of UNESCO, speaking in an interview with The Associated Press. She added that ISIL’s, “view on culture and heritage is just the opposite of what UNESCO stands for.”
The extremist group, which captured the Qaryatain area in early August, posted photos on social media Friday showing bulldozers destroying the Saint Elian Monastery
A Christian clergyman told the AP in Damascus that ISIL militants also wrecked a church inside the monastery that dates back to the 5th century. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks Syria’s conflict, also reported the destruction of the monastery.
A Qaryatain resident who recently fled to Damascus called on the United Nations to protect Christians as well as ancient Christian sites in Syria.
The man, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear his relatives still in Qaryatain might be harmed, said militants levelled the shrine and removed the church bells.
Osama Edward, the director of the Christian Assyrian Human Rights Network, told the AP that government shelling of the area had already damaged the monastery over the past two weeks before ISIL fighters destroyed it.
“Daesh continued the destruction of the monastery,” said Edward, using an Arabic acronym to refer to ISIL. He said the monastery was founded in 432.
Christian priest Jacques Mourad, who lived at the monastery, was kidnapped from the area in May and remains missing. According to Edward, Mourad had actively welcomed and sheltered both Muslim and Christian Syrians fleeing the fighting elsewhere in Homs province.
Activists said that shortly after capturing Qaryatain, ISIL abducted 230 residents, including dozens of Christians. Activists said some Christians were released, though the fate of the others is still unknown.
In February, ISIL kidnapped more than 220 Assyrian Christians, after overrunning several farming communities on the southern bank of the Khabur River in the northeastern province of Hassakeh. Only a few have been released and the fate of the others remains unknown.
Since capturing about one-third of Syria and Iraq last year, ISIL fighters have destroyed mosques, churches and archaeological sites, causing extensive damage to the ancient cities of Nimrud, Hatra and Dura Europos.
ISIL fighters overran the historic town of Palmyra in May. On Tuesday, famed Palmyra expert Khaled al-Asaad was publicly beheaded by ISIL militants, his bloodied body hung on a pole in a main square, according to witnesses and relatives.
Antiquities officials said they believed ISIL militants had interrogated al-Asaad, a longtime director of the site, trying to get him to divulge where authorities had hidden treasures secreted out of Palmyra before the extremists seized the ruins.
The brutal killing stunned Syria’s archaeological community and underscored fears the extremists will destroy or loot the 2,000-year-old Roman-era city on the edge of a modern town of the same name, as they have other archaeological sites.