Terrorists plunder Southern Syria’s historical artifacts

Terrorist groups damaged Dara’a province’s historical sites and looted their artifacts to sell them in neighboring countries when the Southern province was under their control, local sources said on Monday.

The sources in the newly-feed regions in Dara’a regretted that the terrorists damaged historical sites in Tal al-Asha’ari region West of the town of Tafas overlooking Wadi al-Yarmouk and plundered valuable artifacts.

In the meantime, local sources in Houran region in Dara’a disclosed that terrorists along with a number of foreign nationals carried out vast excavation works in the region and unearthed artifacts that date back to the third millennium BC in Tal al-Asha’ari to apparently sell them in neighboring countries.

Head of Historical Artifact Organization in Dara’a Mohammad Nasrullah pointed to severe damage on the sites in Tal al-Asha’ari, and said that the terrorists used explosives and heavy machinery to carry out excavation to unearth the artifacts.

In a relevant development but in Northwestern Syria last week, Tahrir al-Sham Hay’at (the Levant Liberation Board or the Al-Nusra Front) did excavations at the ancient Girls Palace North of the village of al-Dana, plundering its valuable artifacts.

The sources pointed to the vast destruction of the palace, adding that Tahrir al-Sham smuggled the stolen artifacts to Turkey to sell them there.