Free Republic

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) have destroyed one of Palmyra’s most well-known ancient temples, according to Syria’s antiquities chief. Carefully stage-managed photographs by Isil show the moment the terrorist group destroyed one of the best known temples at Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra. The images, released by Isil’s media wing in the central province of Homs, revealed the Temple of Baalshamin was littered with explosives before it exploded into a mushroom cloud on Sunday.

The Islamic State terror group now controls over half of Syrian territory after seizing the village and archaeological site of Palmyra Thursday, activists monitoring Syria's civil war said. Rami Abdurrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told the Associated Press the extremists overran the archaeological site, just to the southwest of the modern settlement on Palmyra, shortly after midnight local time. In Damascus, state TV acknowledged that pro-government forces had withdrawn from the town. A Facebook page close to ISIS published a statement Thursday, purportedly from the group, saying "the soldiers of the Islamic State" completed their control...

Islamic State militants have blown up two ancient shrines they consider sacrilegious in Palmyra, a 2,000-year-old UNESCO World Heritage site in central Syria, the ultra hardline Sunni Muslim group said on Tuesday. The report was the first of any damage being done by the militants to buildings in Palmyra since they seized control of the city, also known as Tadmur, in May. Syrian forces have bombed the city, and the militants camped within it, since then.

Islamic State militants beheaded a renowned antiquities scholar in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra and hung his mutilated body on a column in a main square of the historic site because he apparently refused to reveal where valuable artefacts had been moved for safekeeping. The brutal murder of Khaled al-Asaad, 82, is the latest atrocity perpetrated by the jihadi group, which has captured a third of Syria and neighbouring Iraq and declared a “caliphate” on the territory it controls. It has also highlighted Isis’s habit of looting and selling antiquities to fund its activities – as well as destroying...

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants destroyed three ancient tower tombs in the central city of Palmyra in the last few days, a Syrian government official said Friday. Tower tombs, built on high grounds, are a particular feature of the Roman-era ancient caravan city. Maamoun Abdulkarim, the head of the Antiquities and Museums Department in Damascus, said Friday the militants destroyed the tower tombs, including the Elahbel tower that dates back to the 103 AD, 10 days earlier. Abdulkarim said his information was based on witness accounts and satellite images provided by the Boston-based American Schools of Oriental...

[Syria] Palmyra [Syria] Mar Elian Monastery [Syria] Apamea [Syria] Dura-europos [Syria] Mari [Iraq] Hatra [Iraq] Nineveh [Iraq] Mosul Museum And Libraries [Iraq] Nimrud [Iraq] Khorsabad [Iraq] Mar Behnam Monastery [Iraq] Mosque Of The Prophet Yunus [Iraq] Imam Dur Mausoleum

On the day in May when Islamic State militants raised their black flag above the ancient city of Palmyra, the Damascus Opera House featured a singer in a rumpled black suit belting out traditional Arabic ballads. Members of the audience were herded together so the half-empty auditorium appeared full on state television, and the crowd whistled, clapped and danced in the aisles for the benefit of the cameras. This week, as the extremist militants blew up a 2,000-year-old temple in Palmyra, the opera house in the capital 150 miles to the west prepared to open an art exhibit. “It is...

Before the 20th century, the ruins of Palmyra, once a key crossroads of classical civilizations, existed on the dusty margins of the Ottoman Empire. European travelers, though, took a special interest in the city. The images sequenced above — photographs by the 19th-century French photographer Félix Bonfils and drawings by the 18th-century British traveler Robert Wood — were formative documents in the Western imagination and inspired the architecture of the industrial age's emerging powers. Wood's rendering of an ancient Roman eagle seen in Palmyra, for example, would later become the model for the Seal of the United States. The archaeological...

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants on Sunday blew up the ancient temple of Baal Shamin in the UNESCO-listed Syrian city of Palmyra, the country’s antiquities chief told AFP.“Daesh placed a large quantity of explosives in the temple of Baal Shamin today and then blew it up causing much damage to the temple,” said Maamoun Abdulkarim, using another name for ISIS.Over the past several months, ISIS have blown up and defaced historical sites and artifacts across their sprawling self-proclaimed "caliphate" stretching across Iraq and Syria.ISIS took control of Palmyra in May, located in the central desert region of...

BEIRUT — Islamic State militants have destroyed a temple at the ancient ruins of Palmyra in Syria, activists said on Sunday, realizing one of archaeologists’ worst fears for the 2,000-year-old Roman-era city after the extremists seized it and beheaded a local scholar. Palmyra, one of the Middle East’s most spectacular archaeological sites and a Unesco World Heritage site, sits near the modern Syrian city of the same name. Activists said that the militants used explosives to blow up the Baalshamin Temple on its sprawling grounds, and that the blast was so powerful it also damaged some of the Roman columns...

Palmyra, one of the Middle East’s most spectacular archaeological sites and a UNESCO World Heritage site, sits near the modern Syrian city of the same name. Activists said the militants used explosives to blow up the Baalshamin Temple on its grounds, the blast so powerful it also damaged some of the Roman columns around it. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Sunday night that the temple was blown up a month ago. Turkey-based activist Osama al-Khatib, who is originally from Palmyra, said the temple was blown up Sunday. Both said the extremists used a large amount of explosives...

The Islamic State is continuing its rampage through the Middle East, killing anyone who gets in their way and destroying ancient sites in an effort to cleanse anything they consider anti-Islamic. Late last week we learned that before she was killed, America hostage Kayla Mueller was brutally raped and used as a sex slave by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Today we've learned ISIS has beheaded a world renowned, 82-year old archaeologist who was protecting the ancient site of Palmyra in Syria. More from Fox News: Syrian state antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim told Reuters that the family of Khaled Asaad had informed Abdulkarim...

ISIS beheads Palmyra antiquities expert in the ancient city where he had worked for 50 years - then hangs his body from a column Islamic State militants have beheaded an antiquities scholar in an ancient Syrian city and hung his body on a column in a main square. The family of Khaled Asaad are said to have been told that the 82-year-old scholar who worked for more than 50 years as head of antiquities in Palmyra was executed by ISIS yesterday. Mr Asaad had been detained and interrogated for over a month by the ultra-radical Sunni Muslim militants, according to...

ISIS has released a significant new execution video from the historic city of Palmyra, in the Syrian desert. Child executioners are shown in the video being forced to brutally slaughter a group of more than 25 regime soldiers. The video shows the soldiers lined up on their knees on the stage of the Roman amphitheatre, which had formerly been used for an annual festival in the city. A baying crowd of men and boys gathered in the restored ruin waiting for the slaughter, many wearing military uniforms and headscarves

A new video released by the jihadi terror group, the Islamic State, depicts children, abducted and trained to kill by ISIS, executing 25 men identified as soldiers for the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. The massacre occurs in the historic amphitheater at Palmyra, an ancient Roman city cited as a UNESCO World Heritage Site that has recently been overrun by ISIS terrorists.The video depicts children pulling the triggers against more than 25 men identified as Assad’s soldiers, egged on by a large crowd of men and boys forced to watched the ceremony. The men are lined up on their knees as...

ISIS has reportedly placed improvised explosive devices (IEDs) around the ancient ruins of Palmyra, in Syria, after recently capturing the adjacent city of Tadmore. The jihadi group has released images of the destruction of two shrines near the site... Michael Danti, co-director of the Syrian Heritage Initiative at the American Schools of Oriental Research, which is monitoring cultural damage in Syria and Iraq, reports that the pattern of IED placement appears to be optimized for "filmed destruction." Multiple independent sources confirmed to Danti that following the IED placement, ISIS members traveled around Tadmor using megaphones to announce their action to...

Islamic State jihadists have planted mines around the ancient ruins in Syria's Palmyra, prompting fears for the Unesco World Heritage site. As Armenpress reports citing “Telegraph,” militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) have reportedly carpeted parts of the Roman amphitheatre with bombs and explosives, according to Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria's antiquities chief. It was not immediately clear whether the mines had been lain in preparation for the ruins’ destruction, or as a deterrent to forces loyal to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. The militants seized the strategically important nearby modern town of Tadmur from government forces last month. The British-based...

A coalition of moderate rebel factions known as the Southern Front took control of the Brigade 52 base by early afternoon, spokesman Issam al-Reis said. Brigade 52 is the largest military installation in Daraa province, which borders Jordan, and is key to the defense of northern routes leading to the Syrian capital, Damascus... The loss of the base is another blow to Assad's forces, which have recently suffered a string of battlefield defeats. A largely Islamist rebel alliance that includes al-Qaeda's powerful Syria affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, has seized most of northwestern Idlib province. The Islamic State militant group has captured...

Thousands of Iranian, Afghan and Iraqi fighters have arrived in Syria to defend Damascus and its suburbs against Islamic State (IS), which has said it will mount an offensive against the capital following recent battlefield successes in Deir al-Zor and Palmyra. So far, 7,000 have reportedly been positioned around the city. They are expected to go on the offensive to retake from fundamentalist militiamen the suburb of Jobar from which they can easily access the eastern gates of the city. The total number of reinforcements sent by Iran could rise to 15,000 when fighters reach the northern port of Latakia...

A look at the Arab press in recent days gives the impression that the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria is on the verge of elimination. But before we pop open the champagne, it’s worth recalling that Assad’s rule has been in the same situation in the past. The old Syria has been slowly falling apart for four years and two months, and as far back as July 2012, following the bombing of the Syrian army’s headquarters in Damascus, commentators (including this writer) predicted it would be a matter of days, weeks, or months at most before Assad’s fall. But...