A chilling look at what may be the last pictures from the Biblical city of Palmyra before the Islamic State reduces it to piles of rubble. The city is "jahiliya" or pre-Islamic, therefore it must be eliminated in order to reduce idolatry.
And the world yawns...
From the Daily Mail May 26 by John Hall
Inside Palmyra: ISIS releases taunting tourist board-style video showing smoke rising from ancient ruins as fears grow that the jihadis are preparing to lay waste to the captured Syrian city
Chilling video footage has emerged showing the interior of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra after it was captured by militants fighting for the Islamic State terror group.
A short video released by the local pro-ISIS media company Aamaq News shows thick black smoke rising over Roman ruins that have stood for thousands of years in the central Syrian desert city.
Heavily armed jihadis can be seen patrolling the steps of Palmyra's ancient amphitheatre as the high-definition camera pans around to capture streets lined with ancient monuments that now face destruction at the hands of ISIS and its history-erasing bulldozers and sledgehammers.
The one and a half minute video doesn't feature any fighting in and around the city of Palmyra, which was captured by ISIS militants last Thursday following a lightning advance.
Instead it looks almost like a tourist video - capturing the beautiful sand-coloured Roman ruins in the kind of slick high-definition footage now synonymous with ISIS propaganda releases.
It seems increasingly likely that the video could turn out to be one of the final documents of the ancient city, as the jihadis are expected to raise much of it to the ground in the same way the bulldozed the equally historic city of Nimrod and destroyed ancient artifacts in Mosul museum.
Even if ISIS decide not to destroy the ruins, their destruction may well come about from the battle to force the jihadis out of the city.
Just this morning separate video footage was released showing the destruction of ancient buildings in Palmyra's rubble-strewn suburbs following intense airstrikes by Syrian regime warplanes.
No comments:
Post a Comment