IS 'Blows Up' Ancient Temple In Palmyra

Islamic State militants have destroyed a temple at Syria's ancient city of Palmyra, the country's antiquities chief has said.

Maamoun Abdul Karim said a large amount of explosives were used to blow up the Baal Shamin temple.

The Roman-era temple was built in the 1st Century and is dedicated to the Phoenician god of storms and fertilising rains.

Mr Karim told the Reuters news agency: "We have said repeatedly the next phase would be one of terrorising people and when they have time they will begin destroying temples.

"I am seeing Palmyra being destroyed in front of my eyes. God help us in the days to come."

Baal Shamin is about 550 metres from Palmyra's famous amphitheatre where IS fighters killed more than 20 Syrian soldiers after they captured the historic town in May.

Last week, it emerged that Khaled Asaad, an 82-year-old antiquities scholar who worked for over 50 years in Palmyra, had been beheaded by IS after he had been interrogated for over a month.

After his murder , his body was hung from one of the town's Roman columns, according to state media agency SANA and the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Before the city's capture, Syrian officials said they moved hundreds of ancient statues to safe locations out of concern they would be destroyed.

In June, IS blew up two ancient shrines in Palmyra that were not part of its Roman-era structures but which the group regarded as pagan and sacrilegious.

Over the past several months, the Islamist extremists have blown up and defaced historical sites and artefacts across their sprawling self-proclaimed "caliphate" stretching across Iraq and Syria.