Islamic State shows images of ancient Syrian temple destruction

Islamic State militants published photographs yesterday purporting to show the destruction of a Roman-era temple in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, an act the UN cultural agency Unesco has called a war crime.

Syria's antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim said the images did appear to show the destruction of the ancient Baal Shamin temple and correlated with descriptions given by residents of the explosion detonated there on Sunday.

Five photographs were distributed on social media showing explosives being carried inside, being planted around the walls of the temple, a large blast and then rubble.

The blast photograph shows a huge cloud of grey smoke soaring above the temple, with ancient columns in the foreground.

Beheaded

Activists say Islamic State is tightly controlling communications in the central desert city.

Unesco has described the temple and Palmyra’s surrounding sites as symbols of Syria’s historical cultural diversity, which it says Islamic State is seeking to obliterate.

“It stood as it was for more than 1,800 years. It was a beautiful tourist attraction,” Mr Abdulkarim said by telephone.

He said Islamic State had sought to destroy Palmyra’s culture and economy, as well as killing the long-serving keeper of its ancient ruins.

Mr Abdulkarim said last week the group had beheaded Khaled al-Asaad, the Syrian archaeologist (83) who had looked after Palmyra’s ruins for four decades, and hung his body in public.

Islamic State has proclaimed a caliphate to rule over all Muslims from territory it holds in both Syria and Iraq.

It has a history of carrying out mass killings in places it captures and of demolishing monuments it considers pagan and idolatrous.

The terrorist group seized the desert city of Palmyra in May from government forces but initially left its historic sites undamaged.

It has killed people that it accused of being government supporters in Palmyra’s ancient amphitheatre, according to activists.

Before the capture of the city, site of some of the world’s most extensive and best-preserved Roman-era ruins, Syrian officials said they had moved hundreds of ancient statues to safe locations.

Arrests in Spain and Morocco

In a separate development, Spain and

Morocco

arrested 14 people yesterday suspected of planning attacks and recruiting fighters to join Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, the Spanish government said.

All the arrests were made in Morocco apart from one man detained in the small town of San Martin de la Vega, near Madrid, where hooded anti-terrorist police brought the suspect out from his home with his head covered, according to journalists at the scene.

Police then took the suspect to a nearby mobile phone business which was also searched, they said.

Those arrested were part of a group sending fighters to Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Spain’s Interior Ministry said. They were also planning attacks in Morocco and Spain, it said, without giving details.

“They wanted to replicate in Morocco and Spain the massacres carried out by Daesh members with the aim of creating a climate of psychosis and instability,” the ministry said in a statement, referring to the group by one of its Arabic names, Daesh.

The joint operation was launched after Spanish police spotted that one suspect, the leader of the group, had strong work and social links with Melilla, a Spanish enclave in Morocco, interior minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz told reporters. The operation was still under way, he said.

The arrests come days after a heavily armed 26-year-old Moroccan man who used to live in Spain was accused of attacking passengers on a train in France. An interior ministry source said there was no link between the French attack and Tuesday's arrests.

Spain and other countries in Europe and North Africa are having to tackle radicalised citizens joining militants in Syria and returning to launch attacks at home.

Before Tuesday’s operation, Spain had been involved in 67 arrests of suspected Islamist militants so far this year, 48 in Spain and 19 abroad, according to Interior Ministry figures. – (Reuters)