The 'Islamic State's' quest to erase history

'Islamic State' militants ransacked and destroyed statues in a museum in Mosul, in northern Iraq. The idols were believed to be remnants of the ancient Mesopotamian civilization. The jihadis, who have taken over large swathes of Iraq and Syria, said their interpretation of Islam calls for the statues and relics to be destroyed. Many Muslim scholars denounced the group.

This is a picture of the ruins of the 2,000-year-old city of Hatra, built by the Seleucid Empire which controlled a large part of the then-known ancient world. IS militants were reportedly bringing in bulldozers to raze the ancient city. "Their battle is a battle for identity, to empty the region, primarily Iraq, of its human inheritance," Iraq's Tourism Minister Adel Shirshab said.

The militant group's members also destroyed party of Nineveh, an ancient city in northern Iraq and considered by many Western archaeologists to be the cradle of civilization. "It was expected that [IS] would destroy it," Tourism Minister Shirshab told journalists. The United Nation has called the destruction a "war crime."

"The sky is not in the hands of Iraqis...Therefore the international community must move with the means it has," Iraq's tourism minister said as he pleaded for air strikes against IS extremists. Baghdad has said that IS fighters were defying "the will of the world and the feelings of humanity."

IS militants claim the ancient statues run counter to their radical interpretation of Islam's tenets that prohibit idol worship. But when fighters aren't destroying the artifacts, they're cashing in on them. Experts have said the group is making money in the international market by selling smaller statues from ancient sites while destroying the bulky ones are destroyed.

Scholars often compare the IS' destruction of cultural heritage sites to how the Afghan Taliban destroyed ancient Buddhas of Bamiyan statues in 2001. Only a hollow remains where tall statues of the Buddha once stood. But some fear the damage caused by IS militants to the remains of the ancient Mesopotamian civilization, which pioneered agriculture and writing, could be more devastating.