The Islamic State has sunk to a new low, as the terrorist organization is now strapping captives to historic artifacts and buildings before blowing them up.
In a recent execution, members of ISIS tied three victims to historic columns in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra before setting off an explosion, killing the three victims and destroying the historic columns in the process.
An activist from Palmyra, Khaled al-Homsi, has said that ISIS never informed local residents who the captives were or why they decided to execute them.
Homsi said, “There was no one there to see (the execution). The columns were destroyed and IS has prevented anyone from heading to the site.”
According to another activist from Palmyra, Mohammad al-Ayed, the columns that were destroyed were archeological in nature, and many similar structures are still present in the city.
According to Ayed, the terrorist organization is simply doing this to get noticed.
“ISIS is doing this for the media attention, so that ISIS can say that it is the most villainous, and so it can get people’s attention,” he said.
ISIS has captured territories across Iraq and Syria, and the organization is enforcing an extreme form of Islamic rule in these areas. The group considers artifacts that date back to times before the religion of Islam to be worthy of destruction.
The forces of ISIS seized Palmyra in May, and they have ruined multiple historic sites and artifacts since then. ISIS has already destroyed the temples of Bel and Baal Shamin, in addition to several funerary towers.
Furthermore, ISIS has used the grand amphitheater of Palmyra as a stage for child soldiers of the terrorist group to execute 25 Syrian soldiers in front of an audience.
In August, the terrorist organization beheaded the former antiquities director of Palmyra, who was 82 years old.
The UNESCO World Heritage List includes the Palmyra Ruins. Before the war in Syria, they attracted 150,000 tourists every year.
ISIS is supposedly destroying these historic sites in order to raise their profile so that they can attract new recruits. They also receive funding by selling precious artifacts on the black market.
According to the archaeology association of Syria, more than 900 irreplaceable monuments and archaeological sites have been looted, damaged or destroyed so far in the war, which has now lasted more than four years.
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