The War on Heritage and Memory

In June 2014, Islamic State captured Iraq’s second largest city— Mosul in modern-day Nineveh Governorate, Iraq. This moment in history heralded the beginning of the militant group’s early wave of conquest and destruction.

In fact, it was from Mosul in Nineveh that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed the establishment of his supposed caliphate. Mosul was transformed into the epicentre of Islamic State conflict and the site of some of the most devastating scenes of cultural destructions in modern history, including the ransacking of museums and libraries.

As Islamic State seized swathes of territories in and beyond the city of Mosul, over 1,800 of Iraq’s registered archaeological sites lay under their control. These included the two World Heritage sites of Āshūr and Ḥaṭrā; as well as two other sites on the Tentative List— Nineveh and Nimrud —both of which were reduced to heaps.

The militant group developed a methodical strategy that targeted and destroyed tangible cultural heritage in the region. Islamic State spearheaded these campaigns in a propagandistic and sincere bid to not only erase but re-shape the region’s historic identity.

Although Islamic State militants claimed these destructions solely under ideological grounds, experts say these acts were carried out to conceal the organisation’s illicit excavations to plunder new and undiscovered antiquities. The militant group claimed the destruction of highly historic shrines belonging to Christian, Muslim, and Yazidi populations.

For a period of approximately two years, Islamic State militants carried out a series of destructive campaigns targeting various sites throughout the region, i.e., archaeological sites, artefacts, buildings, natural landscapes, and monuments of artistic, cultural, historic, religious, scientific, or technological significance. Islamic State militants looted and transferred artefacts to other criminal networks, en-route to global marketplaces and collectors.

These campaigns were facilitated as a moneymaking venture to finance Islamic State’s military operations in the region. There also exists mounting evidence that Islamic State either deployed expert archaeologists, or received remote instructions and guidance from such experts, who directed the militant group toward excavation sites.

Such evidence would support a re-evaluation of these campaigns as organised crime, as opposed to ideological vandalism. The terrorist organisation produced and distributed boastful propaganda footage of these campaigns depicting sledgehammer-swinging extremists rampaging through cultural heritage sites, damaging priceless statuary, and toppling friezes.

Islamic State’s destruction of Nineveh’s tangible cultural heritage was also a direct attack on the region’s Indigenous Assyrians. Irina Bokova, during her tenure as director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), employed the term “cultural cleansing,” in reference to Islamic State’s activities.

Six years after the collapse of the Islamic State, the Iraqi Government— with the support of local and international stakeholders —are re-building the city of Mosul from rubble. Such reconstruction efforts will not only reposition Mosul as a cultural hub in Iraq as well as the Middle East but shall restore religious diversity that the city is known for.