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ISIS Beheads Syrian Antiquities Scholar in Palmyra

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The Ancient Syrian City of Palmyra

The Ancient Syrian City of Palmyra

Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times 
BEIRUT, Lebanon — For decades, he was the bespectacled overseer of some of Syria’s greatest archaeological treasures, a man so tied to the reputation of the sprawling ancient ruins in his home city that one historian called him Mr. Palmyra.
Now, months after the city fell to the jihadists of the Islamic State, Khalid al-Asaad, the retired director of antiquities for Palmyra, has fallen, too.
After detaining him for weeks, the jihadists dragged him on Tuesday to a public square where a masked swordsman cut off his head, according to the Syrian government and Mr. Asaad’s relatives.
His blood-soaked body was then suspended with red twine by its wrists from a traffic light, his head resting on the ground between his feet, his glasses still on, according to a photo distributed on social media by supporters of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
The public killing of Mr. Asaad, who had retired a decade ago and recently turned 83, underlined the Islamic State’s brutality as it seeks to erase all traces of the government of President Bashar al-Assad while imposing a strict vision of Islam across its self-declared caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq.
Khalid al-Asaad, the retired chief archaeologist of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra.Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images 
Mr. Asaad was born in Palmyra in 1932 and lived there most of his life, leaving only to study in the Syrian capital, Damascus, as a young man, according to the Syrian state news agency, SANA. In 1963, he was appointed director of antiquities for Palmyra as well as director of its museum, positions he held until his retirement in 2003, when his son Walid took them over.
His deep intimacy with the city’s sprawling ruins and his positions in the Syrian government gave him a form of lordship over all the restoration work and research in Palmyra during his tenure.
“Anyone who wanted to do anything in Palmyra had to work though Khalid al-Asaad,” said Amr Al-Azm, a Syrian professor of Middle Eastern history and anthropology at Shawnee State University in Ohio. “He was Mr. Palmyra.”
The city’s extensive ruins mark the site of an ancient oasis town in the desert northeast of Damascus and include a theater, temples, living quarters and cemeteries.
Unesco, which named Palmyra a World Heritage site, called it “the consummate example of an ancient urbanized complex.”
The city’s history made it one of Syria’s prime tourist attractions until the uprising against Mr. Assad broke out in 2011, leading to the current civil war. As armed rebels took territory elsewhere in the country, Palmyra remained in government hands until May of this year, when Islamic State fighters seized it, raising fears that they would destroy its rich antiquities or sell them to finance its operations.
Reached by phone Wednesday in Homs, Syria, Mr. Asaad’s son Mohammed said his father had refused to leave the city, thinking the jihadists would not bother with someone his age.
“He was a retired government employee and an old man,” the younger Mr. Asaad said. “He was innocent, so he never thought ISIS would hurt him.”

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The Islamic State’s Advantage at Historic Sites 

As it expanded across Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State destroyed many archaeological sites, looting them for profit and damaging some for propaganda. 
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A nephew of Mr. Asaad’s, who goes by the name Khalid al-Homsi and used to be his next-door neighbor, said the jihadists had arrested his uncle for a few days when they first entered the city but then let him go, before arresting him again months later.
He said that his uncle had supported the Assad government and had been alarmed when protesters took up arms against it, but that he had never considered fleeing the city.
“He was very connected to his city and to the antiquities, and he was old,” Mr. Homsi said. “Where would he want to go at that age? He said that whatever was going to happen to the people would happen to him.”
As it has seized territory in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State has destroyed a number of historical sites, blowing up tombs and destroying statues that are forbidden by its strict interpretation of Islam.
In the photo of Mr. Asaad’s body, red writing on a white placard suspended from his waist calls him an “apostate” and lists offenses including representing Syria at “infidel conferences,” serving as “the director of idolatry” in Palmyra, visiting Iran and communicating with a brother in the Syrian security services.
Before the jihadists entered the city, museum workers moved many of its most precious artifacts to safer parts of the country. Some larger pieces left behind have been destroyed, as have a number of tombs in the area.
The jihadists are not believed to have significantly damaged the city’s ruins, and some think they are using them for protection, assuming that the United States-led military coalition that is bombing the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria will not bomb a Unesco heritage site.
Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria’s antiquities minister, told Reuters that the jihadists had interrogated Mr. Asaad about where to find the city’s hidden treasures before killing him.
“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,” Mr. Abdulkarim said.
Hwaida Saad contributed reporting.