Antiquities Destruction And Illicit Sales As Sources Of ISIS Funding And Propaganda

Abstract

The crimes of the Islamic State Organization (often called by its older name of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham or ISIS) against important archeological sites and museums in Iraq and Syria are major and ongoing cultural catastrophes. ISIS leaders have stated that they are destroying pre-Islamic artifacts and structures because they are idolatrous, but their motivations and actions are significantly shrewder and more nuanced than this ultra-radical and propagandistic formulation. ISIS seeks spectacular acts of terrorism and defiance to bring in new recruits and to help intimidate opponents on the ground.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 2017
Accession Number
AD1058513

Entities

People

  • Andrew W Terrill

Organizations

  • United States Army War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Engineered Resilient Systems
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Civil War
  • Criminals
  • Employment
  • Governments
  • International Relations
  • Middle East
  • Money
  • National Security
  • Personnel Management
  • Security
  • Students
  • Terrorism
  • Terrorists
  • United States
  • War
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Archaeological Resource Survey
  • Political Violence and Terrorism Studies.