Militants purge Iraq heritage site
UNESCO calls ruination of 3,000-year-old city ‘a war crime’
BAGHDAD — Iraq’s most revered Shiite cleric joined the United Nations’ cultural agency Friday in decrying the Islamic State’s attack on the renowned archaeological site of Nimrud, a nearly 3,000-year-old city in present-day Iraq whose treasures were one of the 20th century’s most significant discoveries.
The destruction is part of the Sunni extremist group’s campaign to enforce its violent interpretation of Islamic law by purging ancient relics they say promote idolatry. Last week, the group released video of its fighters smashing artifacts in the Mosul museum, and many fear that Hatra, another ancient site near Mosul, could be next.
Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said in his Friday sermon that such destruction “demonstrates their barbarism and savageness and antagonism against the Iraqi people, not only in the present but also to its history and ancient civilizations.”
In Paris, the head of UNESCO called it a war crime. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon agreed, his spokesman said in a statement.
Iraqi authorities were still trying to assess Friday exactly how much of the ancient site was destroyed when the militants bulldozed Nimrud on Thursday, since the area remains in militant hands.
“The destruction of Nimrud is a big loss to Iraq’s history,” Qais Mohammed Rasheed, the deputy tourism and antiquities minister, said Friday. “The loss is irreplaceable.”
A farmer from a nearby village said militants began carrying tablets and artifacts away from the site two days before Thursday’s attack. The militants told the villagers that the artifacts were idols, which are forbidden by Islam, so it was necessary to destroy them, the farmer said. He spoke anonymously for fear of reprisals.
UNESCO, however, has previously warned that the group was selling ancient artifacts on the black market for profit.
Some statues were “put on big trucks, and we don’t know where they are, possibly for illicit trafficking,” UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova said Friday. U.N. officials were studying satellite imagery of the destruction at the site Friday, since it remained too dangerous to approach it, she said.
Bokova said she had alerted the International Criminal Court about a possible war crimes prosecution and planned to alert Interpol, major museums, auction houses and Middle Eastern governments to recover any trafficked artifacts.
“The deliberate destruction of cultural heritage constitutes a war crime,” she said. “I call on all political and religious leaders in the region to stand up and remind everyone that there is absolutely no political or religious justification for the destruction of humanity’s cultural heritage.”
In the ninth century B.C., Nimrud, also known as Kalhu, was the capital of Assyria, an ancient kingdom that swept over much of present-day Iraq and the Levant.
“It’s really called the cradle of Western civilization; that’s why this particular loss is so devastating,” said Suzanne Bott, an archaeologist who helped stabilize structures and survey the ancient site for the U.S. State Department as part of a joint U.S. military and civilian unit.
The site, an area of about 1.3 square miles on the Tigris River, held the remains of temples, palaces and a ziggurat — or step pyramid — and was known for its monumental statues of winged bulls guarding the palace gates.
Many artifacts from Nimrud had previously been moved to museums in Mosul, Baghdad, London and Paris.
Nimrud was already on the World Monument Fund’s list of most endangered sites because of extreme decay and deterioration before it was captured by the Islamic State in June as the extremists took over nearby Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city.
Last year, the militants destroyed the mosque believed to be the burial place of the Prophet Younis, or Jonah, as well as the Mosque of the Prophet Jirjis — both revered ancient shrines in Mosul. They also threatened to destroy Mosul’s 850-year-old Crooked Minaret, but residents surrounded the structure, preventing the militants from approaching.
In July, they removed the crosses from Mosul’s 1,800-year-old Mar Behnam monastery and then stormed it, forcing the monks and priest to flee or face death.
A U.S.-led coalition has been striking the Islamic State since August, and preparations are underway to launch an operation to retake Mosul, officials have said.
Meanwhile, the battle to wrest Tikrit — Saddam Hussein’s hometown — from the Islamic State progressed Friday with Iraqi forces reaching the town of Dawr, 10 miles south of the city. Raed al-Jabouri, the governor of Salaheddin province, said Dawr is now under government control and he expects security forces to reach Tikrit by Sunday.
On Monday, Iraqi security forces began a large-scale operation in an effort to retake the city from the militant group, but the extremists stalled the offensive somewhat by lining roads into the city with explosives and land mines, military officials said.