Plundering, Dismembering, Beheading

"They are cutting these reliefs [ancient bas reliefs in Iraq] into small parts and selling them."
"They don't need to excavate. They just need a chainsaw to cut [off] the king's head or legs if they want."
"[Recent carving off of a winged demon sold abroad] ... "It is now beyond borders."
Qais Hussein Rashid, head, Iraqi Museums department

"We are very, very, very concerned that the situation could be aggravated in a way that causes more and more damage."
Nada al-Hassan, UNESCO World Heritage Centre

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  This Monday, Sept. 15, 2014 photo shows bas-relief inscriptions at the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad. When the Islamic State group overran the northern city of Mosul and surrounding Ninevah province in June, they captured a region were nearly 1,800 of Iraq’s 12,000 registered archaeological sites are located. They snapped up even more as they pushed south toward Baghdad. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban) (The Associated Press)

Well, it's a cultural/religious fixation isn't it, after all? The two great,700-year-old Buddhas of the Bamiyan valley in Afghanistan were destroyed by the fundamentalist Taliban. In Libya and other parts of Africa, Islamist jihadis have destroyed priceless archaeological artifacts, forbidden objects within Islam. In Mali valuable historical and heritage documents beyond price were destroyed by the jihadists in Timbuktu. Any relics relating to a religion predating Islam is held to be heretical and to be destroyed.

In Israel and the West Bank Territory, destruction of ancient Judaic historical-heritage treasures takes place as a symbol of contempt for Judaism and to destroy any vestige of Jews having occupied the historical lands of their heritage, leaving the Arabs to triumphantly proclaim those Biblical lands were theirs and theirs alone through historical endowment. Now, in Iraq, historical relics hailing back to Assyrians and Akkadians, Babylonians and Romans in Mesopotamia are being dismantled, destroyed or sold on the black market.

In Iraq and Syria, state antiquities officials warn of an irreparable disaster being carried out on their historical heritage. Black market dealers arrive to areas controlled by the ISIS/ISIL terrorists to take profitable advantage of the relics being looted; those that aren't being destroyed. Relics of Christianity and the 2,800 of Iraq's 12,000 registered archaeological sites are now overrun by the Islamic State.

The four ancient cities of Nineveh, Kalhu, Dur Sharrukin and Ashur, once capitals of the Assyrian Empire that ruled by the sword over the entire area around 2,500 B.C. are being dismantled and sold into the black market. Mosul's city museum with its rare collections of artifacts, and the 2,300-year-old city of Matra with its complex of preserved temples have seen the Islamists order out antiquities officials, scorned for protecting "idols", which are then sold, to enrich the Islamic State.

A Syrian policeman patrols the ancient city of Palmyra, which lay at the crossroads of several civilizations. Looting has been a problem at many historical sites. PHOTOGRAPH BY JOSEPH EID/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

The plundering includes Sunni Muslim shrines viewed by the Sunni Islamists themselves as idolatrous, and that label is placed as well on Shiite mosques. An estimated 30 historic sites around Mosul have been destroyed, along with centuries-old shrines to Islamic prophets. Cleansing the territories they hold of ethnic minority groups, sectarian groups offensive to fanatical Islam, and terrorizing those residents who have not yet fled, the Islamic State is intent on wiping clean their held territories of 'brazen' images.

Although there is nothing logical about their depredations, their mass assaults, murders, rapes, abductions into slavery, there is a logic to their wiping the slate clean to leave nothing behind that visually offends fundamental Islam and in the process gaining wealth. American intelligence estimates that the Islamic State collects over $3-million daily from various sources; oil smuggling, antiquities sales, human trafficking, business extortion, ransoms and thefts.

Their smuggling networks run through the Kurdish region, through Turkey and through Jordan. In Syria, looting of such sites has increased tenfold since early 2013, according to the country's director-general of antiquities and museums, Maamoun Abdulkarim. Purging their controlled areas of any symbols of "paganism", destroying Assyrian-era monuments, the gunmen use hammers to break apart the statues of ancient figures.

UNESCO has called upon art dealers and museums to boycott and refuse to deal with Iraqi artifacts. It has also called upon neighbouring countries to be alert to the potential of smuggling. Which will be as effective as the United Nations instructing the government of Syrian President Bashar al Assad, and the Islamic State to put an end to their human rights infractions, their penchant for mounting atrocities upon the helpless civilian population remaining in these hell-holes.