Waleed Asaad speaks: Our father killed by Isis to shock the world

Waleed Asaad, archaeologist son of Khaled Asaad, the former director of the Palmyra archaeological site who was brutally murdered by Isis in 2015 for refusing to point out the place where some artifacts had been hidden, spoke in recent days at the Mediterranean Archaeological Tourism Exchange in Paestum, along with his brothers Fayrouz and Omar.

Asaad let it be known that Isis deliberately killed his father Khaled with the aim of striking world opinion: “The choice to strike our father, a personality recognized for his scientific and human depth, was dictated by a specific will to shock world opinion and create the feeling of terror in the Syrian community.” His sister Fayrouz, also an archaeologist, on the other hand, spoke about the possibility of rebuilding the Palmyra site, hinting that the operation could go through, but for some monuments that were totally destroyed, the situation seems very complicated.

The three brothers (Omar is also an archaeologist) then attended the ceremony to present theInternational Archaeological Discovery Award (named after Khaled Asaad himself), the award that recognizes the year’s major archaeological discovery, which for 2017 went to German Peter Pfälzner, who headed the mission that uncovered a large Bronze Age site in northern Iraq. The German scholar said he was particularly honored with the award partly by virtue of having worked in Syria for 30 years, many of them together with Khaled Asaad.

Waleed Asaad speaks: Our father killed by Isis to shock the world

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