Iraq
says Islamic State militants raze ancient Hatra city
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[March 09, 2015]
By Ahmed Rasheed and Isabel Coles
BAGHDAD/ERBIL,Iraq
(Reuters) - Islamic State militants have destroyed
ancient remains of the 2,000-year-old city of Hatra in
northern Iraq, officials said on Saturday, in their
latest attack on Iraqi antiquities which the United
Nations condemned as barbarism.
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The antiquities and tourism ministry said it had received
reports from the northern city of Mosul, which is under the
control of the radical Islamist group, that the site at Hatra
was demolished on Saturday.
A ministry official said it was difficult to confirm the reports
and the ministry had not received any pictures showing the
extent of the damage at Hatra, listed as a U.N. world heritage
site.
But a resident told Reuters he heard a powerful explosion at
Hatra early on Saturday and said that other people nearby had
reported that Islamic State militants had destroyed some
buildings there and were bulldozing other parts.
Hatra lies about 110 km (70 miles) south of Mosul, the largest
city under Islamic State control. A week ago the militants
released a video showing them smashing statues and carvings in
the city's museum, home to priceless Assyrian and Hellenistic
artefacts dating back 3,000 years.
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On Thursday they attacked the remains of the Assyrian city of
Nimrud, south of Mosul, with bulldozers. U.N. Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon condemned that attack, saying that targeting the
world's "common cultural heritage" constituted a war crime.
Hatra dates back 2,000 years to the Seleucid empire which
controlled a large part of the ancient world conquered by
Alexander the Great. It is famous for its striking pillared
temple which blends Graeco-Roman and eastern architecture.
"The destruction of Hatra marks a turning point in the appalling
strategy of cultural cleansing under way in Iraq,” said Irina
Bokova, head of the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO.
"This is a direct attack against the history of Islamic Arab
cities, and it confirms the role of destruction of heritage in
the propaganda of extremists groups," Bokova said in a joint
statement with Abdulaziz Othman Altwaijri, Director General of
the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
IRAQ BLAMES SLOW RESPONSE
Saeed Mamuzini, spokesman for the Mosul branch of the Kurdish
Democratic Party, said the militants had used explosives to blow
up buildings at Hatra and were also bulldozing it.
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The antiquities ministry said the lack of tough international
response to earlier Islamic State attacks on Iraq's historic sites
had encouraged the group to continue its campaign.
"The delay in international support for Iraq has encouraged
terrorists to commit another crime of stealing and demolishing the
remains of the city of Hatra," it said in a statement.
Archaeologists have compared the assault on Iraq's cultural history
to the Taliban's destruction of the Bamyan Buddhas in 2001. But the
damage wreaked by Islamic State, not just on ancient monuments but
also on rival Muslim places of worship, has been swift, relentless
and more wide-ranging.
Last week's video showed them toppling statues and carvings from
plinths in the Mosul museum and smashing them with sledge hammers
and drills. It also showed damage to a huge statue of a bull at the
Nergal Gate into the city of Nineveh.
Islamic State, which rules a self-declared caliphate in parts of
Iraq and Syria, promotes a fiercely purist interpretation of Sunni
Islam which draws its inspiration from early Islamic history. It
rejects religious shrines of any sort and condemns Iraq's majority
Shi'ite Muslims as heretics.
Last July it destroyed the tomb of the prophet Jonah in Mosul. It
has also attacked Shi'ite places of worship and last year gave
Mosul's Christians an ultimatum to convert to Islam, pay a religious
levy or face death by the sword. It has also targeted the Yazidi
minority in the Sinjar mountains west of Mosul.
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(Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris; Writing by Dominic
Evans; Editing by Pravin Char and Stephen Powell)
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