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Adsos Letter

(19,459 posts)
Wed Aug 19, 2015, 02:38 PM Aug 2015

ISIS Beheads Syrian Antiquities Scholar in Palmyra

The New York Times
By BEN HUBBARD
AUG. 19, 2015

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The extremists of the Islamic State have beheaded the 83-year-old retired director of antiquities in the Syrian city of Palmyra, one of the world’s most important archaeological sites.

Before his retirement about a decade ago, the director, Khalid al-Asaad, was the top overseer for Palmyra’s sprawling Roman-era ruins and the gatekeeper for researchers seeking to work there for more than five decades.

“Anyone who wanted to do anything in Palmyra had to work though Khalid al-Asaad,” said Amr Al-Azm, a Syrian professor of Middle Eastern history and anthropology at Shawnee State University in Ohio. “He was Mr. Palmyra.”

After being detained for weeks by the Islamic State jihadists who seized the city this year, Mr. Asaad was killed on Tuesday, according to the Syrian government and conflict monitoring groups.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/20/world/middleeast/isis-palmyra-syria-antiquities-scholar-beheaded.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0
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