| 1 | Islamic State militants beheaded an antiquities scholar in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra and hung his body on a column in a main square of the historic site, Syria's antiquities chief said on Tuesday. |
| 2 | Syrian state antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim said the family of Khaled Asaad had informed him that the 82-year-old scholar who worked for over 50 years as head of antiquities in Palmyra was executed by Islamic State on Tuesday. |
| 3 | Asaad had been detained and interrogated for over a month by the ultra-radical Sunni Muslim militants, he told Reuters. |
| 4 | There are fears that Islamic State militants will destroy the Palmyra ruins in Syria, which UNESCO has designated a World Heritage site. |
| 5 | "Just imagine that such a scholar who gave such memorable services to the place and to history would be beheaded... and his corpse still hanging from one of the ancient columns in the centre of a square in Palmyra," Abdulkarim said. |
| 6 | "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." |
| 7 | Abdulkarim said Asaad was known for several scholarly works published in international archaeological journals on Palmyra, which in antiquity flourished as an important trading hub along the Silk Road. |
| 8 | He also worked over the past few decades with U.S., French, German and Swiss archeological missions on excavations and research in Palmyra's famed 2,000-year-old ruins, a UNESCO World Heritage Site including Roman tombs and the Temple of Bel. |
| 9 | Before the city's capture by Islamic State, Syrian officials said they moved hundreds of ancient statues to safe locations out of concern they would be destroyed by the militants. |
| 10 | In June, Islamic State did blow up two ancient shrines in Palmyra that were not part of its Roman-era structures but which the militants regarded as pagan and sacrilegious. |