DAMASCUS, Syria—Islamic State (IS) fighters broke into the museum of Palmyra, though a Syrian official said its artifacts have been removed and are safe while the US-led coalition conducted air strikes on the group’s installations near the captured ancient town—the first such reported attack in the central province of Homs.
The Department of Defense said in a statement that US-led coalition aircraft had attacked an IS position near Palmyra, which goes by the modern name Tadmur, destroying six anti-aircraft artillery systems and an artillery piece.
The IS group captured Palmyra on Wednesday, raising concerns around the world they would destroy priceless, 2,000-year-old temples, tombs and colonnades in the town’s south.
The strikes would appear to help the embattled forces of forces of President Bashar al-Assad, which have had a succession of recent defeats to IS group and other rebels. But experts and archeologists said the air strike, coming days after the group overwhelmed the city, was too little too late.
“It is like closing the doors after the horses have bolted,” said Amr Al-Azm, a former Syrian antiquities official and currently a professor at Shawnee State University in Ohio.
A picture circulated on Twitter accounts of IS supporters showed the black flag used by the extremists raised over the town’s hilltop Islamic-era castle, a structure hundreds of years old.
Al-Azm said the fact that the castle dates back to an Islamic civilization may protect it from the kind of destruction IS members have inflicted on pre-Islamic heritage sites, such as the ancient cities of Hatra and Ninevah in Iraq.
The group says the ancient relics promote idolatry, but it also maintains a lucrative business by excavating and selling such artifacts on the black market, according to antiquities authorities.
One activist in the city of Palmyra, who goes by the name of Khaled al-Homsi because of security concerns, told the Associated Press (AP) that the militants smashed a statue in the museum’s foyer—a replica that depicts ancient residents of Palmyra.
Maamoun Abdulkarim, the head of the Antiquities and Museums Department in Damascus, told the AP that militants entered the museum in the town’s center on Friday afternoon, locked the doors and left their own guards. He said the artifacts earlier had been moved away to safety.
“We feel proud as all the museum’s contents were taken to safe areas,” he told reporters. But Abdulkarim warned that the IS group’s control of the town remains a danger to its archaeological sites.
Al-Azm said he doubts the museum was totally emptied because larger pieces would be hard to move. He said the museum also contained at least two mummies, and carvings from the nearby tombs, mostly dating to the first, second and early third century.
Image credits: The web site of Islamic State militants via AP