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Destruction of cultural heritage by ISIL


Deliberate destruction and theft of cultural heritage has been conducted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant since 2014 in Iraq, Syria, and to a lesser extent in Libya. The destruction targets various places of worship under ISIL control and ancient historical artifacts. In Iraq, between the fall of Mosul in June 2014 and February 2015, ISIL has plundered and destroyed at least 28 historical religious buildings. Valuable items from some buildings were looted in order to smuggle and sell them to finance ISIL activities.

ISIL uses a unit called the Kata'ib Taswiyya (settlement battalions) to select targets for demolition.UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova branded the ISIL activities in this respect as "a form of cultural cleansing" and launched the Unite4Heritage campaign to protect heritage sites threatened by extremists.

Although Libya, Syria, and Iraq ratified the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict in 1957, 1958, and 1967 respectively, it has not been effectively enforced.

ISIL justifies the destruction of cultural heritage sites with its extreme following the Salafism which, according to its followers, places "great importance on establishing tawhid (monotheism)", and "eliminating shirk (polytheism)." While it is often assumed that the group's actions are mindless acts of vandalism, there is an ideological underpinning to the destruction. ISIL views its actions in sites like Palmyra and Nimrud as being in accordance with Sunni Islamic tradition. However, it is valuable to point out that no Muslims worship cultural heritage sites, and such were historically almost untouched by the Muslim rulers in countries such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Iran. The only country on Earth that actively destroys its cultural heritage is Saudi Arabia, whose government just as ISIS also follows Salafi version of Sunni Islam.


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