ISIS continues to horrify the civilized world with its wanton destruction and theft of some of the most treasured antiquities of the lands they occupy in Syria and Iraq. Why?
“The destruction is not just of physical structures – it’s the texture of the city and the lives of its different communities,” Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University told the Los Angeles Times.
ISIS is turning archaeological relics into a cash cow to fund their struggle to defeat the West. The group “considers antiquities a natural resource, like mining or oil,” said Christopher Jones, a Columbia University historian who has documented cultural damage in the region on his blog.
One thing ISIS hates is any evidence that people from different cultures can peacefully coexist in the same area.
Read more here:
http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iraq-islamic-state-antiquities-snap-story.html