ISIS militants took a sledgehammer and Kalashnikovs to destroy artifacts in Iraq’s UNESCO World Heritage city of Hatra. The video shows Islamic militants destroying artifacts. The last in a series published by the group is aimed at showcasing its fight against shrines, statues and artifacts of antiquity that it calls “false idols”.
The seven-minute footage titled “Smashing Idols” shows the shameful destruction of a 2,000-year-old archeological site at Iraq’s Nineveh governorate, 290km north-west of Baghdad.
Hatra was founded in the days of the Seleucid Empire (300-200 B.C.) and flourished under the later Parthian Empire. The Hellenistic and Roman architecture with Eastern decorative features showed the greatness of the civilization.
