Islamic State destroys Palmyra shrines in Syria

Pictures uploaded to a text and image sharing website show one of the monuments, believed to be the tomb of Sheikh Mohammed Ali, being blown up. Militants from the extreme Sunni Muslim group took control of the city of 50,000 people in May and destroyed the shrines because they consider them to be sacriligious.

On Sunday, a group monitoring the war in Syria said that Islamic State had planted bombs and mines in the ancient city which is home to some of the world’s best preserved Roman ruins. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that it was not clear whether the group was preparing to destroy the ruins or whether the mines had been planted to deter government forces from advancing towards the city. There are no reports of these ruins being destroyed.

Syrian antiquities chief Abdul Maamoun Abdulkarim said: “In all the areas where they [IS] spread when they see tombs they destroy them as see them as sacrilegious and a return to paganism.”

Hundreds of statues had been moved from the city to safe locations, before the militants, who control large swathes of Iraq and Syria, took over, he told Reuters.

On Saturday the Islamic State group’s media wing released footage of homes in the modern city of Palmyra that it said had been hit by Syrian regime airstrikes.

This is not the first time that Islamic State has destroyed historic monuments.

In April a video was uploaded in which militants were purportedly shown to be destroying artifacts with electric drills and explosives in the city of Nimrud in Iraq and in February another showed people destroying statues in a museum in Mosul.

In a video allegedly showing the destruction of the artifacts in Nimrud, a man said to be an IS militant said: “God has honoured us here in the Islamic State and helped us to destroy anything that used to be worshipped besides God in ancient days. Look at us here, all praise be to God, we are destroying all statues and monuments.”

Another man goes on to say: “We remove the signs of polytheism and spread monotheism in every single territory we acquire. By God, we will destroy the signs of polytheism and we will destroy the graves and shrines of the rejectionists (Shi’ites) in their homes.

“We will smash the (Christian) crosses and we will demolish the Black House (White House) in the middle of America, the home of infidels.”