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Cultural heritage sites destroyed by ISIS for being 'un-Islamic'

The following are examples of world cultural heritage destroyed or damaged during recent conflicts.

By :  naren pulloor
Update: 2016-08-20 04:47 GMT
From Mali to Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, IS fighters have regularly turned their sights on priceless vestiges of peoples' cultural heritage.
In March 2001, Taliban leader Mullah Omar ordered the destruction of two 1,500-year-old Buddha statues in the eastern town of Bamiyan, because they were judged to be anti-Islamic.
The demolition came a day after hardliners blew up the mausoleum of Sheikh Abdessalem al-Asmar in the western city of Zliten.
In August 2012, Islamist hardliners bulldozed part of the mausoleum of Al-Shaab Al-Dahman, close to the centre of the Libyan capital.
The fabled desert city of Timbuktu, named as the \"City of 333 saints\" and listed by UNESCO, was for months attacked by jihadists bent on imposing a brutal version of Islamic law.
In June 2012, Al-Qaeda-linked militants destroyed 14 of the northern city's mausoleums, important buildings that date back to Timbuktu's golden age in the 15th and 16th centuries as an economic, intellectual and spiritual hub.
The militants also attacked Hatra, a Roman-period site, in the northern Niniveh province. Thousands of books and rare manuscripts were also burned in February in Mosul's library.
In a video released by IS on February 26, 2015 militants were shown using sledgehammers to smash pre-Islamic treasures in the museum in the country's second city Mosul, sparking global outrage.
They include the ancient city's most famed shrine, the 2,000-year-old Temple of Bel, blown up a week after the destruction of the temple of Baal Shamin.
In September 2015, Islamic State fighters destroyed two of the most important temples in the UNESCO-listed Syrian city of Palmyra as they pressed a campaign to wipe out some of the Middle East's most important heritage sites.
The following are examples of world cultural heritage destroyed or damaged during recent conflicts.

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