Following last Tuesday’s murder of Palmyra’s renowned chief archaeologist, Khaled Asaad (82), extremists of the “Islamic State” (IS) continue to destroy Christian churches and monasteries in Syria. On Thursday, they started to use heavy equipment to tear down the Syrian Catholic monastery Mar Elian in Al-Qaryatayn, central Syria. Mar Elian, probably built in the 4th century, is one of the oldest monasteries in the country. “The Islamist extremists are trying to obliterate the peoples’ memories of the two thousand years of Christian history by destroying Christian churches and monasteries such as the monastery Mar Elian,“ says Dr. Kamal Sido, Middle East consultant of the Society for Threatened Peoples.

In the night of August 6, 2015, IS-militias occupied Al-Qaryatayn. On the next day, the Islamists abducted at least 230 people. The small town is located close to the Syrian semi-desert to the north-east of Damascus (110 km), between Homs (85 km) and Palmyra (160 km). The town’s name means “two villages”. In 2004, Al-Qaryatayn had 14,208 inhabitants – Sunni Muslims and Christians.

At least 81 Christian churches and monasteries in Syria have been destroyed since 2013, as well as parts of the historic Christian city Maalula, which is located to the north of Damascus. In March 2015, IS-extremists destroyed several Assyrian churches in the villages along the river Khabour in the northeast of the country.