Islamic State destroys fifth-century monastery in central Syria

Image circulated by Isis purports to show the bulldozing of the Saint Elian monastery. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Islamic State has demolished a monastery founded more than 1,500 years ago in central Syria, near a town where the extremists abducted dozens of Christians earlier this month, activists said.

The destruction of the Saint Elian monastery near the town of Qaryatain comes days after Isis militants in Palmyra publicly beheaded an 81-year-old antiquities scholar who had dedicated his life to studying and overseeing the town’s ancient ruins.

The developments have stoked concerns that Isis may be accelerating its campaign to destroy and loot non-Islamic and pre-Islamic heritage sites inside the swaths of Iraq and Syria it controls.

“I think we are worried about almost all the heritage sites in Syria. Nothing is safe,” said Irina Bokova, director general of Unesco.

The militant group, which captured the Qaryatain area in early August, posted photos on social media on Friday showing bulldozers destroying the Saint Elian monastery.

A Christian clergyman in Damascus said Isis also wrecked a church inside the monastery that dates back to the fifth century. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks atrocities in the Syrian conflict, also reported the destruction of the monastery.

A resident of Qaryatain who recently fled to Damascus called on the UN to protect Christians in Syria, as well as ancient Christian sites. The man, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said militants levelled the shrine and removed the church bells.

Osama Edward, the director of the Assyrian Human Rights Network, told the Associated Press that government shelling of the area had already damaged the monastery over the last two weeks before Isis fighters destroyed it.

“Daesh continued the destruction of the monastery,” said Edward, using an Arabic acronym to refer to Isis. He said the monastery was founded in AD432.

A Christian priest, Jacques Mourad, who lived at the monastery, was kidnapped from the area in May and remains missing. According to Edward, Mourad had welcomed and sheltered both Muslim and Christian Syrians who were fleeing the fighting elsewhere in Homs province.

Activists said that shortly after capturing Qaryatain, Isis abducted 230 residents, including dozens of Christians. Some Christians were released, they said, though the fate of the others is still unknown.

In February, Isis kidnapped more than 220 Assyrian Christians, after overrunning several farming
communities on the southern bank of the Khabur river in the north-eastern province of Hassakeh. Only a few have been released and the fate of the others remains unknown.

Since capturing about a third of Syria and Iraq last year, Isis fighters have destroyed mosques, churches and archaeological sites, causing extensive damage to the ancient cities of Nimrud, Hatra and Dura Europos.

In May militants overran the historic town of Palmyra, where on Tuesday Khaled al-Asaad was publicly beheaded by the group, with his bloodied body hung on a pole in a main square, according to witnesses and relatives.

Antiquities officials said they believed Isis militants had interrogated Asaad, a long-time director of the site, trying to get him to divulge where authorities had hidden treasures which were removed from Palmyra before the extremists seized the ruins.

The killing stunned Syria’s archaeological community and underscored fears the extremists will destroy or loot the 2,000-year-old Roman-era city of Palmyra, on the edge of a modern town which still bears its name.

Asaad was known as “Mr Palmyra” and Bokova recalled him as “a man who stood for more than 50 years behind Palmyra’s research, a man who inscribed Palmyra on the world heritage list in the 80s, who dedicated his life to research”.

She recalled first visiting Palmyra with Asaad as her guide. “He introduced me to this beautiful Venice of the desert, as it was called. We walked through the colonnades, more than a kilometre of beautiful colonnades.”

She fears Palmyra may suffer the same fate as other heritage sites that fell under Isis control. Experts have speculated that Isis has used the destruction of heritage sites to cover for the lucrative looting and selling of archaeological treasures.

“We know that some of the destruction has started,” Bokova said. She added that recent satellite images revealed “a terrible network of ... holes dug into the lands around Palmyra and inside, for illicit excavations and then eventually trafficking and looting”.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/21/islamic-state-destroyed-ancient-saint-eliane-monastery-syria-says-priest