Isis releases pictures of ancient Palmyra temple destruction

Isis destroyed the temple of Baal Shamin on Sunday, and on Tuesday released still showing the 2,000-year-old structure being rigged with explosives, and then destroyed.

Syria’s antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim told Channel 4 News on Monday that the destruction of the Roman-era temple raises fears over the future of other monuments at the world heritage site.

“It is something very negative, for us and the international community, what will happen in the future after some weeks and months,” he said.

“Really we are very worried.”

On Monday Unseco’s Director-General Irina Bokova described the destruction as “a new war crime and an immense loss for the Syrian people.”

“The systematic destruction of cultural symbols embodying Syrian cultural diversity reveals the true intent of such attacks, which is to deprive the Syrian people of its knowledge, its identity and history,” she said.

The destruction also follows the murder of a Syrian antiquities scholar, Khaled Asaad, who was beheaded in teh central Syrian city before being hung from a lamp post.

The 82-year-old was described as the “father of archaeology” in Syria by Mr Abdulkarim.