Posted: 09/02/2015 at 12:54pm | IP Logged

By Dan Wooding, Founder of the ASSIST News Service

PALMYRA, SYRIA (ANS – August 26, 2015) – Following the destruction of a nearly 2,000-year-old historic ruin in Syria -- an act the United Nations cultural organization called a war crime – the self-styled Islamist terror group, Islamic State, also known as ISIS, has followed up with images of how it blasted the site.

This has been reported by Jethro Mullen, Yousuf Basil and Schams Elwazer for CNN, who stated that Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria’s director-general of antiquities and museums, said that sources in Palmyra informed him that ISIS members rigged the temple with large quantities of explosives and detonated them. The photos showing the destruction are real, he said.

The series of photos shows men rolling barrels of explosives into the temple and strapping them to columns, then a mushroom cloud with a final photo of a pile of rubble.

Captions on the photos claim that Islamic State (ISIS) used IEDs, improvised explosive devices, to completely level the temple, which dates back to the first century.

The photos were posted on the usual Internet photo-sharing sites the group uses to distribute its propaganda.

“They destroyed an incredibly important architectural structure,” Abdulkarim said. “It is the first structure in the Palmyra complex to be destroyed, although they recently destroyed two Islamic shrines nearby.

“They said they would destroy the statues but not the structures themselves inside Palmyra,” he said. “They lied.”

The CNN report also said that Irina Bokova, the director-general of UNESCO, said in a statement that the destruction of the temple was “a new war crime and an immense loss for the Syrian people and for humanity.”

News of the demolition of the temple comes less than a week after the observatory said ISIS militants had publicly beheaded Khaled al-As’ad, 82, the former general manager for antiquities and museums in Palmyra.

Islamic State fighters seized control of Palmyra and the nearby modern town of Tadmur in May, prompting fears over what the militants would do to the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

“The images fit ISIS’ pattern of producing propaganda aimed to shock viewers, particularly Western audiences,” added CNN.

According to Walid Shoebat (http://shoebat.com/), Islamic State fighters have executed at least 400 people in Palmyra since capturing the ancient Syrian city in late May, Syrian state media said.

Shoebat said in his report that “shocking testimonies” have emerged showing, showing systematic decapitations, bodies strewn across blood-filled streets in Palmyra, even whole families, medical and then government officials with their entire families – victims of ISIS unrelenting savagery as they stormed the ancient city.

Photo captions: 1) Images showing the apparent destruction of the Baalshamin temple at Palmyra, Syria, by Islamic State (ISIS) militants have appeared on social media. 2) Islamic State bringing in explosives. 3) Part of an Islamic State (ISIS) massacre in with a man being decapitated by these heartless killers after they stormed the ancient city. 4) Dan Wooding outside the Kurdistan Parliament in Erbil, Northern Iraq, during a reporting trip for ANS.

Source: Assist News Service