The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said jihadists cut the throat of the archaeologist, who was over 80 years old, in a public square in the modern city of Palmyra on Tuesday in front of dozens of locals.
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State media quotes the national antiquities chief claiming ISIS had tried to get information from Asaad, who had refused, and says the militants exhibited the body by hanging it from a column.
“The continued presence of these criminals in this city is a curse and bad omen on (Palmyra) and every column and every archaeological piece in it,” Abdulkarim said. Abdulkarim told Reuters that he also worked with American, French, German and Swiss archaeological missions to excavate and research the city’s ancient tombs and temples. After retiring, al-Asaad worked as an expert with the Antiquities and Museums Department.
“We knew they would not leave him alone”.
However, there are no reported damages to Palmyra’s monumental Roman-era ruins yet.
Last month, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, released a video showing child soldiers summarily executing 25 government troops in the city’s Roman amphitheater. The group uses extremist interpretations of Sunni Islam to justify the destruction, which often targets pre-Islamic artefacts and other symbols of multiculturalism viewed as idolatrous.
Since falling to ISIS, Palmyra’s ancient site has remained intact but the militants destroyed a lion statue in the town dating back to the second century.
ISIS militants have beheaded a world renowned antiquities scholar in the Syrian city of Palmyra.
The 81-year-old archaeologist oversaw activities at the site for 40 years until his retirement in 2003, when he became an archaeological researcher at Syria’s Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums (DGAM).
In a photograph purporting to show his body, a handwritten sign accused him of representing Syria in conferences overseas with “infidels” and of being director of Palmyra’s “idols”.
“He was Mr. Palmyra, you couldn’t do any work in Palmyra without going through him”, Amr al-Azm, an antiquities expert and professor at Shawnee State University in Ohio, told the AP.
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It is now thought that they will destroy Palmyra, one of the most important archaeological sites in the Middle East.
