’ISIL’ Bulldozes Ancient Assyrian City of Nimrud
Local Editor
The "ISIL" terrorist group has begun bulldozing the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in Iraq, the government said, in the extremists' latest attack on the country's historical heritage.
An Iraqi antiquities official confirmed the news, saying the destruction began after noon prayers on Thursday and that trucks that may have been used to haul away artifacts had also been spotted at the site.
"Until now, we do not know to what extent it was destroyed," the official said on condition of anonymity.
"ISIL" members came to the Nimrud archaeological city and looted the valuables in it and then they proceeded to level the site to the ground," a tribal source from near Mosul, where ancient Nimrud is located, said.
"There used to be statues and walls as well as a castle that Islamic State has destroyed completely."
Nimrud, one of the jewels of the Assyrian era, was founded in the 13th century BC and lies on the Tigris River around 30 kilometers southeast of Mosul, Iraq's second city and ISIS's main hub in the country.
"I'm sorry to say everybody was expecting this. Their plan is to destroy Iraqi heritage, one site at a time," said Abdel-Amir Hamdani, an Iraqi archaeologist from New York's Stony Brook University.
"Hatra of course will be next," he said, referring to a beautifully preserved city in Nineveh province that is more than 2,000 years old and is a UNESCO world heritage site.
The UN cultural body's Iraq director, Axel Plathe, called Thursday's reported destruction "another appalling attack on Iraq's heritage."
Nimrud is the site of what was described as one of the greatest archeological finds of the 20th century when a team unearthed a collection of jewels and precious stones in 1988.
Most of Nimrud's priceless artifacts have long been moved to museums in Mosul, Baghdad, Paris, London and elsewhere but giant "lamassu" statues - winged bulls with human heads - and reliefs were still on site.
The destruction at Nimrud came a week after the extremist group released a video showing militants armed with sledgehammers and jackhammers smashing artifacts at the Mosul museum.
That attack sparked widespread consternation and alarm, with some archeologists and heritage experts comparing it with the 2001 demolition of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan by the Taliban. However, some archeologists said that a portion of the statues destroyed in the video had been plaster copies, as the originals had been moved to Baghdad.
UNESCO director general Irina Bokova demanded an emergency meeting of the Security Council and called for the International Criminal Court to look into the Mosul museum destruction.
Many of the artifacts destroyed in the Mosul museum were from Nimrud and Hatra.
The Mosul region was home to a mosaic of minorities, including Assyrian Christians, who consider themselves to be the region's indigenous people.
Iraq's heritage already suffered a major blow in the lawlessness and looting that followed the toppling of former dictator Saddam Hussein by US-led forces in 2003, when looters torched buildings and ran off with treasures thousands of years old.
According to the UN, some 28,000 people have fled the Tikrit area as Iraqi forces advance towards "ISIL".
"Military operations in and around Tikrit have precipitated displacement of an estimated 28,000 people to Samarra," the UN said in a statement Thursday.
"Field reports indicate that additional displacements are under way and that yet more families remain stuck at checkpoints," it said.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
