Matthew 24:10,11 Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
ISIS terrorists smashed cultural artifacts from the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra according to a statement from the terrorists and from Syrian state media outlets.
Terrorists caught a man smuggling six ancient statues through Aleppo province and then destroyed the statues after he was taken to an “Islamic court” in Manbij.
“An IS checkpoint in Wilyat arrested a person transporting several statues from Palmyra,” the group said in an online statement. “The guilty party was taken to an Islamic court in the town of Minbej, where it was decided that the trafficker would be punished and the statues destroyed.”
The statues “appear to be eight statues stolen from the tombs in Palmyra. The destruction is worse than the theft because they cannot be recovered,” Maamoun Abdelkarim, Syria’s Antiquities Director, told the London Guardian.
Also reported destroyed was a 2,000 year old statue of a lion that was outside the museum in Palmyra discovered during a 1977 archaeological mission.
“IS members on Saturday destroyed the Lion of al-Lat, which is a unique piece that is three metres [10ft] tall and weighs 15 tonnes,” Abdelkarim told AFP. “It’s the most serious crime they have committed against Palmyra’s heritage.”
Abdelkarim said the items destroyed by the terrorists were “priceless.”
