The Link Between the Islamic State and the Western Art Trade

[Geee]

Free Beacon:

When Matthew Bogdanos began investigating the looting of artifacts from Iraq’s National Museum in 2003, his team often found caches of weapons mixed in among the stolen antiquities.

 

In time, he discovered the missing link. Al Qaeda had been profiting from the sale of relics pillaged from the museum.

 

“We would be searching for terrorists, and later we found antiquities,” Bogdanos says. “Ultimately both of those trades had been rolled into one.”

 

“That should have surprised nobody.”

 

Unlike in other Middle Eastern or African countries, terrorist groups in Iraq do not have access to diamonds, opium, or other cash crops to fund attacks. But modern-day Iraq was once home to the ancient empires of Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, leaving behind a wealth of artifacts to be uncovered—and purloined.