The secretary-general of the United Nations has called for the international community to stop Islamic State terrorists wiping out Iraq’s cultural heritage, as fears rise that jihadists could launch copycat attacks against antiquities across the world.
Ban Ki Moon said he was outraged by reports that Isis militants had begun blowing up the 2,000-year-old desert fortress at Hatra days after bulldozing ruins at Nimrud, the 3,300-year-old former capital of the Assyrian empire.
“The deliberate destruction of our common cultural heritage constitutes a war crime,” he said in a statement released by his office.
“The secretary-general urgently calls on the international community to swiftly put a stop to such heinous terrorist activity.”
Fears of copycat attacks are mounting in other countries rich in cultural heritage where