IS beheads aging Syrian antiquities scholar

Associated Press

DAMASCUS, SYRIA

The 81-year-old antiquities scholar had dedicated his life to exploring and overseeing Syria’s ancient ruins of Palmyra, one of the Middle East’s most spectacular archaeological sites. He even named his daughter after Zenobia, the queen that ruled from the city 1,700 years ago.

That dedication may have cost him his life. On Wednesday, relatives and witnesses said Khaled al-Asaad was beheaded by Islamic State militants, his bloodied body hung on a pole in a main square.

Antiquities officials said they believed IS militants had interrogated al-Asaad, a long-time director of the site, trying to get him to divulge where authorities had hidden treasures secreted out of Palmyra before the extremists seized the ruins last spring.

The brutal killing stunned Syria’s archaeological community and underscored fears the extremists will destroy or loot the 2,000-year-old Roman-era city on the edge of a modern town of the same name, as they have other major archaeological sites in Syria and Iraq.

“We have lost not just a scholar of archaeology but one of the pillars of archaeology in the 20th century,” said Ahmad Ferzat Taraqji, a 56-year-old antiquities expert and friend of the victim’s.

The Sunni extremists, who have imposed a violent interpretation of Islamic law across the territory they control in Syria and Iraq, claim ancient relics promote idolatry and say they are destroying them as part of their purge of paganism – though they are also believed to sell off looted antiquities, bringing in significant sums of cash.

Known as “Mr. Palmyra” among Syrian antiquities experts for his authoritative knowledge and decades administering the site, al-Asaad refused to leave even after IS militants captured the town and neighboring ruins in May.