12 years after US-led invasion, Iraq re-opens famed national museum

Iraq’s national museum officially reopened on Saturday after 12 years of painstaking efforts during which close to a third of 15,000 pieces looted during the US-led invasion were recovered. The reopening was brought forward in what officials said was a response to the destruction of priceless artefacts by Islamic State group jihadists in the northern city of Mosul. On Thursday, the jihadists who have occupied Iraq’s second city of Mosul since June last year released a video in which militants smash ancient statues with sledgehammers in the city’s museum.

The events in Mosul led us to speed up our work and we wanted to open it today as a response to what the gangs of Daesh (Islamic State) did.

Qais Hussein Rashid, the deputy tourism and antiquities minister, using an Arabic acronym for the IS group.

Militants are also seen using a jackhammer to deface a 40-tonne Assyrian winged bull in an archaeological park in Mosul. The destruction sparked global outrage and fears over the fate of other major heritage sites in areas under IS control. The pictures of jihadists gleefully hacking away at treasures dating back several centuries before Christ drew comparisons with the 2001 dynamiting by the Taliban of the Bamiyan buddhas in Afghanistan. The 2003 plundering of the Baghdad museum, footage of which was beamed around the world at the time, has been compared to the 13th century Mongol sack of the city’s library. The museum was considered to host one of the world’s greatest archeological collections.

We will preserve civilisation and we will track down those who want to destroy it.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi

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