ISIS militants aren’t only systematically destroying Iraqi artifacts. Whatever they don’t blow up or burn in the public square as acts of “cultural cleansing,” they’re selling off on the black market to fund their activities.
“Assyrian tablets were stolen and suddenly found in European cities,” Baghdad Museum director Qais Rashid said at the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) headquarters this week in Paris.
“The Mosul Museum, the second most important in Iraq, suffered an attack from Daesh and they also attacked the staff from the museum,” Rashid added. (As most of French-based media, UNESCO refers to ISIS/ISIL/IS as “Daesh,” a name the extremist rogue army hates.)
Just like the Nazi plunder of WWII, the organization’s military terror is paired with destruction and looting of culture. Mosul, Tikrit and other areas of Iraq have been subject to crude excavations, targeted explosions and destructive raids.
UNESCO asked for all countries in the United Nations “as well as the main museums around the world and the art market, Interpol, the World Customs Organisation” to call for “the utmost vigilance over objects that could come from the current looting of Iraqi heritage.”
All this confirms the depressingly obvious — if people want something, whether it’s oil or some Assyrian tablets, they will buy it, even from terrorist maniacs. (Photo: Wikipedia)
