In 2011, after the civil war in Syria for the fight against the dictatorship, hundreds of militants were made. IS was the most talked about. IS’s unethical operations gave shock to the whole world. IS massacred thousands of civilians for no reason and murdered many war correspondents who were dispatched to the Middle East including Kenji Goto. Also, IS abducted civilians as prisoners for raising funds through their families and governments. If IS thinks prisoners are not worthy, they sell prisoners as slaves or murder them. One of the anecdotes that spread about IS’s cruelty to the world is that a mother went to IS to see her son who had been captured by IS. IS gave soup to her and she ate that. However, the soup that she ate was made of her son's flesh and IS members were sneering. IS mercilessly operated without hesitation, and, at the same time, they started to destroy cultural heritages of the world.
  The fact that IS has destroyed cultural heritage has become known because they uploaded video clips on the internet. They extracted relics from historic sites and sold those illegally. Also, they damaged cultural assets by planting bombs or bulldozing them. The cultural assets that have already been destroyed by IS are Nimrud, Hatra and Khorsabad. On the other hand, cultural assets that are targeted by IS were known as the birthplaces of Iraq and Mesopotamian culture. These play an important role in the study of human history, so this issue is growing serious. There are various opinions about their actions’ reason. For example, some are ‘to attract international society’s attention’, ‘to stop the worship of religions other than theirs’, ‘to raise funds through selling relics’ and ‘to stop having free ideas and appreciating cultural diversity’. However, the reason of their actions is clearly unknown.
  Iraq and Syria, which are closely located to IS’s headquarters, prepared various countermeasures to protect their cultural heritage because of the continuous destruction of cultural heritage by IS. The Iraq National Museum, which is located in Baghdad, installed iron window bars. A Mosaic Museum in Syria sealed the mosaics with bond and set up a barricade with sandbags. On the other hand, the Iraqi government took an effort to protect Babylon under UNESCO World Heritage simultaneously with these simple countermeasures. However, if Babylon was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage, its absolute protection could be impossible. Therefore, the Iraqi government requested air support from America against IS before Babylon is damaged by IS. In addition, the US supported their preventive activity. The World Monuments Fund in US suggested plans designed by experts for the Iraqi government to preserve Iraqi relics. Their plans contain how to protect relics, educational content on how to cope with looting, and recording relics in picture or drawing for later reconstruction.
  Though nations of the world presented the solutions to prevent from damaging cultural heritage, cultural heritages are precariously preserved because of IS’s merciless destruction. The United Nations forces, which are led by the US, proceeded with the air support for the last 8 months for stopping IS’s acts of brutality. However, there were many civilian victims during the air support. Also, territories were ruined. Meanwhile, they are inviting new IS members from overseas and strengthening their military power. If IS’s military power grows larger than now, more victims will follow.
  The root of IS was Saddam Hussein, who was the former Iraqi president. After the collapse of the Hussein regime, the people who played a key role in the Hussein regime organized IS and then announced that they established a new state in 2014. Historically, establishing a country comes at the price of blood. The price of the IS’s establishing a country was massacres of innumerous civilians because they didn’t accept the differences of other culture and religions. IS, which is locked in their world, will not be permitted by other countries and will be recorded in history as Sunni militants.

By Oh Ah-ra

ar34@cbnu.ac.kr