Archeologists yesterday expressed fears that after ransacking the Mosul museum in Iraq, Islamic State (IS) group extremists would embark on a systematic destruction of heritage in areas under their control.
Particularly at risk are the ancient cities of Hatra, a UNESCO world heritage site, and Nimrud. Both are south of Mosul, which has been the extremists’ main hub in Iraq since June last year.
“This is not the end of the story and the international community must intervene,” said Abdelamir Hamdani, an Iraqi archeologist at New York’s Stony Brook University.
The group formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant released a video on Thursday showing its militants smashing ancient statues to pieces with sledgehammers at the Mosul museum.
Militants were also seen using a jackhammer to deface a colossal Assyrian winged bull at the Nergal gate in the large archeological park that lies in the city.
“They told the guards they would destroy Nimrud,” said Hamdani, who used to be based in Iraq with the department of antiquities.
“It is one of the very important Assyrian capitals, there are reliefs and winged bulls there... This would be a real disaster,” he said by telephone from the US.
“Maybe they will also attack and destroy Hatra, it is a very isolated site in the desert,” he said.
Hatra is a UNESCO-listed site that lies in IS-controlled territory about 100km southwest of Mosul.
UNESCO says the “remains of the city, especially the temples where Hellenistic and Roman architecture blend with Eastern decorative features, attest to the greatness of its civilization.”
“I am afraid that more destruction is in their pipeline,” said Ihsan Fethi, an Iraqi architect and heritage expert based in Jordan.
“They could do anything, they could move to the temples in Hatra, and say they’re heathens and blow it up pretty easily. Who will stop them?” he said.
On Thursday, IS militants blew up a 12th-century mosque “because it housed a tomb,” Fethi said.
In the group’s extreme interpretation of Islam, statues, idols and shrines are a material corruption of the purity of the early Muslim faith and amount to recognizing other objects of worship than God.
However, their views are marginal and most clerics, even those who promote a rigorist Islam, argue that what were idols in the day of the Prophet are now part of cultural heritage.
UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said on Thursday that she had sought an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council following the demolitions in Mosul, which she called “intolerable” and described as a threat to Iraq’s security.
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
RSS