Islamic State (IS) fighters have blown up the famous Arch of Triumph in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, the nation’s head of antiquities said yesterday, as the militants press their campaign to tear down the treasured heritage site.
The extremists have carried out a sustained campaign of destruction of heritage sites in areas under their control in Syria and Iraq, and in mid-August beheaded Palmyra’s 82-year-old former antiquities chief.
Syrian antiquities director Maamun Abdulkarim warned of impending catastrophe in the UNESCO-listed world heritage site, which the militants have been dismantling since capturing the ruins in May.
Photo: AFP
“This is a systematic destruction of the city. They want to raze it completely,” Abdulkarim said.
“They want to destroy the amphitheater, the colonnade. We now fear for the entire city,” he said, calling on the international community to “find a way to save Palmyra.”
Known as the “Pearl of the Desert,” the ancient oasis town of Palmyra, about 210km northeast of Damascus, became famous as a stopping point for caravans traveling on the Silk Road.
Both the citadel and the ruins are on the UNESCO World Heritage list, and before the war about 150,000 tourists a year visited Palmyra.
IS has already destroyed the shrine of Baal Shamin and the 2,000-year-old Temple of Bel, regarded as Palmyra’s masterpiece, as part of a campaign to destroy pre-Islamic monuments, tombs and statues it considers idolatrous.
Experts say the militants have used the destruction to raise their profile to attract new recruits and are also funding their “caliphate” by selling artifacts on the black market.
Syria’s archeology association, the APSA, says that more than 900 monuments and archeological sites have been looted, damaged or destroyed during the four-year civil war.
The Arch of Triumph, situated at the entrance of the ancient ruins’ historic colonnaded street, was an “icon of Palmyra,” Abdulkarim said, warning that IS fighters have already laid explosives in other monuments.
“We have received news from the site that the Arch of Triumph was destroyed yesterday. IS booby-trapped it several weeks ago,” he said.
“We are living through a catastrophe. Since the capture of the city [by IS]), it has been one shock after another,” he said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group and local activist Mohammad Hassan al-Homsi backed up the account, saying the arch had been ruined.
“The Arch of Triumph was pulverized. IS has destroyed it,” Homsi said.
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