ISIS members have made their way through a museum in Mosul, destroying 3,000-year-old statues, sculptures, pieces of art, and books.
However, they didn’t just go around spontaneously destroying these precious artifacts — they actually used power drills and sledgehammers to smash these items to smithereens. One of the ISIS members who went around destroying these pieces insisted that they’d done so because they promoted idolatry.
A clip of the incident features a man explaining to the camera, “The Prophet ordered us to get rid of statues and relics, and his companions did the same when they conquered countries after him.”
While these vandals were going around destroying the ancient pieces of art in the Nineveh Museum in the city of Mosul, which is based in the north of Iraq, another posse was destroying thousands upon thousands of books that were previously housed in Mosul Public Library.
It’s been alleged that earlier this week another group of terrorists stormed into Mosul Public Library where they went around burning 10,000 books as well as over 700 rare manuscripts. This included a collection of Iraqi newspapers that were from as early as the 20th century, as well as books and maps from the Ottoman Empire.
Members of Mosul society are thought to have tried to stop ISIS’s attempts to ravage this culture, however, they ultimately failed to overwhelm the arsonists.
According to the Daily Mail , the video of the incident also shows several member donned in black attire, armed with sledgehammers, systematically destroying various sculptures.
Another bit of footage shows one of the militants using a power tool to destroy a winged bull sculpture that depicted the Assyrian protective deity. It’s been alleged that this piece actually dates all the way back to the 9th century B.C.
The Iraqi city of Mosul, which is the biggest city currently being overrun by the Islamic State, was taken over in June of 2014. Since then, a number of Muslim holy sites, as well as numerous other shrines, have been destroyed by the group, as these extremists look to eliminate threats from Mosul.
However, rather than simply destroying and obliterating all of these priceless and precious artistic and historical commodities, ISIS have also decided to try and profit from them. It’s been alleged that a number of these artifacts have appeared on the black market, as ISIS looks to fund their crusade across the area and its neighboring countries.
[Image via Huff Post ]