ISIS Beheaded an 82-Year-Old Archaeologist Who Refused to Reveal the Location of Ancient Artifacts

"When ISIS took the city they rounded up anybody they considered to be an enemy."

In May, the Islamist insurgent group ISIS seized Palmyra, a 2,000-year-old Syrian city. Not long afterwards, it smashed the UNESCO World Heritage site's cultural relics with sledgehammers, blew up its shrines, and hacked apart the famous Lion of al-Lat, a limestone statue carved in the first century B.C. ISIS fighters bloodied its Roman amphitheater when they used it as a stage to execute 25 captives.

Yesterday, the so-called Islamic State's bloody occupation of the ancient site continued with the beheading of 82-year-old Khaled al-Asaad, a renowned archeologist who had served as the keeper of Palmyra for more than 50 years. Asaad reportedly refused to reveal the location of Palmyra's artifacts to ISIS. After over a month of interrogation, the insurgents removed his head, and then hung his corpse from a column in a main square.................

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