ISIS Beheads Elderly Archaeology ‘Pioneer’

For over 50 years, al-Asaad was in charge of preserving artifacts from the 2,000-year-old city of Palmyra, which was seized by the Islamic State in May.

Al-Asaad is reported to have been arrested a month ago and interrogated by members of Isis seeking information on where Roman artefacts may have been hidden before Isis occupied the ancient city in May.

The last moments of Mr Asaad’s life were spent in his beloved Palmyra, in a public square where he was killed, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the country’s civil war. A sign tied to the corpse identifies it as al-Asaad and describes him as an “apostate” and “supporter of the Alawite regime”, in reference to the minority religious group of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

When Isil took over the city scholars anxious that the group would mount a campaign of destruction at Palmyra similar to the one undertaken in Iraq, but so far there have been no reports of damage to the archaeological remains at the site.

Most of Palmyra’s site has remained in tact since it fell under ISIS control, but militants did destroy a lion statue that dated back to the 2nd century.

ISIL militants beheaded Khaled al-Asaad, 82, a renowned antiquities scholar in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra and hung his body on a Roman column in a main square of the historic site.

In addition to writing more than 20 books on Palmyra and the Silk road, Asaad was fluent in Aramaic and translated ancient texts, and discovered a number of tombs around the ruins. Among his titles are “The Palmyra Sculptures“, and “Zenobia, the Queen of Palmyra and the Orient“. “He knew every aspect of Palmyra”, says Amr al-Azm, an archeologist who works with a secret network of activists trying to safeguard Syria’s cultural heritage.

“But they will not succeed”.

Meanwhile 12 people were killed and 40 injured in a vehicle bomb attack on a Kurdish security forces building in the north-eastern Syrian city of Qamishli on Wednesday, according to a local medical official. That dark irony probably wasn’t lost on many people.

The IS claimed responsibility for the blast. The Kurdish fighters, aided by U.S.-led airstrikes, also have captured significant territory from the extremist group in northern Syria.