Islamic State group jihadists have blown up several of ancient Palmyra's famed tower tombs as they press their demolition of the UNESCO-listed world heritage site, Syria's antiquities chief said Friday.
IS has carried out a sustained campaign of destruction against heritage sites in areas under its control in Syria and Iraq, and in mid-August beheaded the 82-year-old former antiquities chief in Palmyra.
News of the demolition of the tower tombs which date to the first century AD comes after the jihadists' destruction of the ancient shrine of Baal Shamin and the 2,000-year-old Temple of Bel, regarded as Palmyra's masterpiece.
Antiquities director Maamun Abdulkarim told AFP that among at least seven tombs destroyed were the three best preserved and most treasured funerary towers, including the famed Tower of Elahbel.
"We received reports 10 days ago but we've just confirmed the news," he said.
"We obtained satellite images from the US-based Syrian Heritage Initiative, taken on September 2."
All of Palmyra, including the four cemeteries outside the walls of the ancient city, has been a UNESCO world heritage site since 1980. In its listing, the UN agency singles out the tower tombs as the "oldest and most distinctive" of Palmyra's funerary monuments -- "tall multi-storey sandstone buildings belonging to the richest families".
He said the tower tombs were symbols of the economic boom of Palmyra in the first century AD, when it dominated the caravan trade between east and west from its oasis in the desert.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, IS addressed a letter to Palmyra's residents promising further destruction.
"It pledged to demolish and destroy more heritage, saying that 'everything that is worshipped without God will be destroyed'," the Observatory said.
Gruesome violence and the destruction of priceless artefacts have become hallmarks of IS as it has expanded its so-called caliphate straddling Iraq and Syria.
... Experts say that while the jihadists prize the shock value of demolishing ancient sites, they are also keen to preserve some artefacts to sell on the black market to fund their "caliphate".
For more, see AFP via Yahoo news
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