According to a report published by the French newspaper Le Monde, ISIS extensively destroyed the Delbarjin ancient site in northern Afghanistan between 2019 and 2021, with the help of professional experts in the field.
The report, published on Saturday, April 8, states that ISIS has inflicted irreparable damage on the largest ancient city center in northern Afghanistan using the methods it had used in the past in Iraq and Syria.
The report said, “This destruction could only have been done by highly organized networks that operate as representatives of or under the control of ISIS.”
Based on the information in the report, the level of equipment and the methods of “looters” indicate that they are professional and still rely on experts who knew what they were doing.
According to the newspaper, local people could not have done such a thing.
Le Monde has written, based on the research of the French Archaeological Delegation in Afghanistan (DAFA) and the Institute of Digital Heritage (Iconem), “Thousands of cubic meters have been excavated in this area using excavators.”
Le Monde also quoted DAFA as saying, “Delbarjin is the target of a much larger looting operation. We have recorded nearly 100 looted sites in Balkh province alone and a few in Kunduz.”
The French Archaeological Delegation has stated that there are two hypotheses for the trafficking of looted historical artifacts. The first hypothesis is that ISIS was alone in these looting operations and smuggled the cars across the Turkmenistan border, crossing a desert of about 60 kilometers with difficulty.
According to this institution, the second hypothesis is that this group has gained access to these ancient sites using widespread corruption in the former Afghan government or among the Taliban.
The ancient site of Delbarjin in Afghanistan has been looted by treasure hunters, according to satellite images analyzed by archaeologists. The looters entered the site in April 2019 with the first bulldozer and opened a road to access the northern part of the site in October of the same year.
In November 2020, they opened other infiltration routes towards the west and south, allowing them to take objects out of the area. The looting has caused the complete disappearance of the 10-meter-high ancient citadel in the Delbarjin site.
Archaeologists believe that the treasure hunters were hoping to find artifacts such as books, manuscripts, gold jewelry, or other ancient works dating back to the third and fourth centuries BC.
The French Center for Archaeology warns that the use of heavy machinery may have damaged these ancient artifacts, including stone sculptures that the looters may have found during the excavation.
Delbarjin is the remains of an ancient city located 40 kilometers northwest of Balkh, possibly built during the Achaemenid Empire in the fifth century BC.
