Archaeologist Khaled Asaad, 82, who looked after the Roman ruins in Palmyra was taken hostage by the group after it captured city in May this year, reported BBC.
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State news agency SANA and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights say IS beheaded 81-year-old Khaled Asaad on Tuesday in a square outside the town’s museum.
Kalid alAsa’ad, a university professor and the former general manager for antiquities and museums in Palmyra, was beheaded in the city’s public square as militants watched, Abdulrahman said, citing alAsa’ad’s relatives in the city.
Asaad, who had worked for over 50 years as the head of antiquities in Palmyra, was detained and interrogated by Isis militants for over a month. He also had several scholarly articles published about Palmyra, which flourished in ancient times as a key trading hub along the Silk Road and is home to several Roman-era ruins, which had attracted thousands of tourists prior to Syria’s civil war.
Before the city’s capture by ISIS, Syrian officials said they moved hundreds of ancient statues to safe locations out of concern they would be destroyed by the militants.
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Reuters said that the Roman-era ruins are believed to have not been damaged by the Isis militants, “despite their reputation for destroying artefacts they view as idolatrous under their puritanical interpretation of Islam”. One of the destroyed tombs belonged to a descendant of the Muslim prophet Muhammad’s cousin.
