article_snippet: In recent years, it has come under threat from fundamentalists - with pictures of ISIS militants destroying some of the religion's most important historical sites shocking the Islamic World.
article_snippet: In February, thugs used power drills and sledgehammers to smash invaluable ancient items which were housed in a museum in Mosul, while this month thugs  destroyed 3,000-year-old Nimrud and 2,000-year old Hatra - both Unesco world heritage sites.
article_snippet: Two years earlier, extremists linked to Al Qaeda torched the £16-million Ahmed Baba Institute, home to some 20,000 ancient documents on culture, science and geography, in Timbuktu.
article_snippet: The destruction - the most recent of which was described as a 'war crime' by
article_snippet: Ms Porter told the Evening Standard: 'What’s been destroyed in Iraq belongs to all of us.'
article_snippet: The announcement came as valuable artifacts in the Middle East are destroyed .
highlights_snippet: Comes as artifacts in the Middle East come under threat from extremists .