A new trove of documents, obtained by an RT Documentary crew who recently uncovered details of illicit ISIS oil business with Turkey, sheds light on jihadists’ lucrative trade of looted antiquities along their well-established oil and weapons transit routes.
There is no official accounting that would illustrate the true scale of looting being undertaken in Syria, a land once rich with cultural treasures. However, there is no doubt that since radical Islamists established a foothold in the region under raging civil war, pieces of the world’s global heritage have ended up in the hands of terrorists.
READ MORE: ‘Pearl of the desert’: RT visits liberated ancient ruins of Palmyra (DRONE FOOTAGE)
Along with oil smuggling, a lucrative trade in antiquities has become ISIS’s source of income to support its devastating operations, many of which leveled unique historic sites such as Palmyra. Artifacts, some worth thousands of dollars apiece, have been turning up in antique markets f-rom eastern Europe to the US.
Following the exposure of the details of the ISIS oil business, RT has exclusively obtained additional evidence that sheds light on the jihadists’ black market of plundered treasures and its transit routes via Turkey.
According to a document that the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) turned over to an RT Documentary crew, the so-called Ministry of Natural Resources established by ISIS to hold grip of the oil operations has a separate “Department of Artifacts.”
“One of the new documents is a note that has the same letterhead of ISIS’s Ministry of Natural Resources as the oil bills of sale, which we discussed last time,” a reporter, whose name and face have been obscured for security reasons, explained. The letterhead, similar to those found on oil invoices that Kurdish soldiers seized f-rom what used to be the homes of IS fighters, is visible in the upper-right corner of the newly obtained document.
The note, apparently addressed to checkpoint sentries, asks “brothers at the border” to allow a Turkish antiquity seller into Syria for the purposes of mutual profit. It reads:
“To the brother responsible for the border, Please assist the passage of brother Hussein Hania Sarira through your post along with the man f-rom Turkey – the artifacts trader, for the purpose of working with us in the department of artifacts in the Ministry of Natural Resources. May Allah bless you, Loving brother Abu Uafa At-Tunisi.”
While filming in the town of Shaddadi, located in the Syrian province Hasakah, RT reporters came across archaeological pieces, fragments of various ceramic pots. Abandoned in a tunnel, which ISIS fighters fled through, they were discovered by the Kurdish YPG troops after they liberated Shaddadi f-rom jihadists in the February 2016.
Since RT made its revelations last week, a stream of questions poured on Turkey with experts and high-profile politicians demanding f-rom Ankara explanations to the “very convincing” report that exposed its alleged links to terrorists.
