(Before It's News)
Ancient ‘Exorcist’ temple full of idolatrous
Iraqi jihadists seize ancient ‘Exorcist’ temple full of idolatrous stone statues from 3rd century B.C. An ancient temple that featured in the film The Exorcist has fallen into the hands of jihadists who have taken over northern Iraq. The pre-Christian worship complex at Hatra, a vast network of 70-metre sun-god temples that is a UNESCO world heritage site, features in the opening sequence of the 1973 horror classic. It now lies in the territory claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS), prompting fears that its stone statues could be destroyed as idolatrous images by the terrorists. Already, ISIS fighters in the city of Mosul, 100 kilometres north-west of Hatra, have demolished a statue of Othman Al-Mousuli, a 19th-century Iraqi musician and composer, and a statue of Abu Tammam, an Abbasid-era Arab poet. A councillor from the Hatra area said that the 20-strong squad of Iraqi policemen who had guarded the temple from looters had fled after the area fell to tribal militants and ISIS fighters a fortnight ago. Locals say that since then, the area has been targeted by Iraqi warplanes that have bombed the jihadists less than a kilometre from the temple. “The guards all ran and left their weapons behind when they heard that the tribes and ISIS were coming,” said Mohammed Abdallah Khozal, the counselor whose own son was killed in the fighting with the jihadists
