IS destroys ancient statue in Syrian Palmyra

Islamic State (IS) militants have destroyed ancient ruins of the Syrian town of Palmyra, a site given World Heritage status by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the country’s antiquities director Maamoun Abdelkarim confirmed late on Thursday.

Abdelkarim said this was "the most serious crime committed against Palmyra's heritage."

He commented that the statue had been covered with a metal plate and sandbags to protect it from fighting, “but we never imagined that IS would come to the town to destroy it.”

The jihadist group published photographs of its militants destroying a 2,000-year-old statue of a lion, that was seized from a local smuggler.

“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 group had seized Palmyra on 20 May.

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