The Islamic State group has beheaded the 82-year-old retired chief archaeologist of Palmyra, who refused to leave the ancient city when the jihadists captured it, Syria's antiquities chief said. A UNESCO World Heritage site famed for well-preserved Greco-Roman ruins, Palmyra was seized from government forces in May amid fears IS might destroy its priceless heritage as it had done in other parts of Syria and Iraq. Syrian antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim told AFP he had urged Khaled al-Assaad to leave Palmyra, but he had refused.
"He told us 'I am from Palmyra and I will stay here even if they kill me.'" Abdulkarim said Assaad was executed Tuesday afternoon in Palmyra, in central Homs province. "Daesh has executed one of Syria's most important antiquities experts," he said, using an Arabic acronym for IS. Photos purporting to show Assaad's body tied to a post in Palmyra were circulated online by IS supporters.
The execution is one of hundreds that have been carried out by IS in and around Palmyra since they took the city in May. "He was the head of antiquities in Palmyra for 50 years and had been retired for 13 years," Abdulkarim said. He hailed Assaad as a leading expert on the ancient history of the city, which grew from a caravan oasis first mentioned in the second millennium BC.
"He spoke and read Palmyrene, and we would turn to him when we received stolen statues from the police and he would determine if they were real or fake." Abdulkarim said Assaad's body had been hung in the city's ancient ruins after being beheaded. But the photo circulating online showed a body on a median strip of a main road, tied to what appeared to be a lamp post.
A sign attached to the body identified it as that of Assaad. It accused him of being an apostate and a regime loyalist for representing Syria in conferences abroad with "infidels", as well as being director of Palmyra's "idols". It also claimed he had been in contact with regime officials. Abdulkarim said Assaad had been detained by IS last month along with his son Walid, the current antiquities director for Palmyra, who was later released.