Isis fighters destroy ancient artefacts at Mosul museum
Footage shows Islamic State militants in Iraq smashing statues with sledgehammers in bid to crush what they call non-Islamic ideas
Video purportedly shows Isis militants drilling and smashing artefacts in Iraq.
Kareem Shaheen in Beirut
Friday 27 February 2015 08.26 AEDTLast modified on Friday 27 February 201512.00 AED
Islamic State militants ransacked Mosul’s central museum, destroying priceless artefacts that are thousands of years old, in the group’s latest rampage which threatens to upend millennia of coexistence in the Middle East.
The destruction of statues and artefacts that date from the Assyrian and Akkadian empires, revealed in a video published by Isis on Thursday, drew ire from the international community and condemnation by activists and minorities that have been attacked by the group.
“The birthplace of human civilisation … is being destroyed”, said Kino **riel, one of the leaders of the Syriac Military Council – a Christian militia – in a telephone interview with the Guardian from Hassakeh in north-eastern Syria. The destruction took place in Mosul, the Iraqi city that has been under the control of Isis since June when jihadi fighters advanced rapidly across the country’s north.
