Isis ransacking of ancient Assyrian city confirmed by Iraq's head of antiquities

Kareem Shaheen in Beirut
Thursday 12 March 2015 19.18 GMT

Iraq’s director of antiquities has confirmed that Islamic State militants have ransacked the ancient city of Dur-Sharrukin near Mosul, the group’s latest assault on the country’s millennia-old heritage.

News of the latest attack emerged as the European parliament passed a resolution calling for the creation of safe havens in northern Iraq to protect the country’s minorities. Accusations have also surfaced that Isis used chlorine gas against Iraqi forces attacking its stronghold in Tikrit.

“(Dur-Sharrukin’s) city walls were razed, and some elements of the temples, but we don’t know the exact extent (of the damage),” Iraq’s director of antiquities, Qais Rasheed, told Reuters. “Looting took place, and then the razing”.

The antiquities ministry acknowledged reports on Monday that Dur-Sharrukin, present day Khorsabad, had been desecrated by the militants in latest attack by Isis against Iraq’s Assyrian heritage. The group also destroyed artefacts at Mosul museum, burned historical manuscripts at the city’s library, destroyed a winged bull statue at the Nergal gate to ancient Nineveh and destroyed portions of the Assyrian fortress city of Hatra. It also bulldozed segments of the ancient city of Nimrud.

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