The Ancient Sites In Iraq And Syria Are Being Destroyed

Washington Post: The unbelievable damage Islamic State has done to ancient sites in Iraq and Syria

As the Islamic State continues its efforts to create a "caliphate," killing thousands in its path, the group is also pursuing another campaign: the destruction of historic sites.

The militant group has destroyed numerous sites that have high historic and cultural value. And the destruction is never a coincidence -- as my colleague Ishaan Tharoor writes:

The militants espouse a radical, puritanical strain of Sunni Islam whereby all shrines or holy sites that honor beings lesser than their God are considered apostate.

But as The Post's Loveday Morris reports, the extremists aren't only attacking the sites. They also "have been quietly selling off smaller antiquities from Iraq and Syria, earning millions of dollars in an increasingly organized pillaging of national treasures."

Update: Islamic State isn’t just destroying ancient artifacts — it’s selling them -- Washington Post

WNU Editor: Here is an easy prediction .... future generations in the Middle East and in the rest of the world will look at what has happened during this time as the "dark ages" where much of mankind's history was destroyed because of a fanatical belief in a puritanical strain of Islam.