Khaled al-Asaad

The Story of Khaled al-Asaad

So since Palmyra has been liberated I feel like it's a good time to share this story from last year. Khaled al-Asaad (b. 1934) was born and raised in Palmyra, also known as Tadmur, Syria. A father of eleven children (including one daughter named after the Palmyrene queen Zenobia), al-Asaad worked as an archaeologist, historian and head of antiquities at the ancient city of Palmyra for 40 years. He was a man with a passion and a devotion to history and to his field, a passion that cost him his life.

When ISIS invaded Palmyra last summer, they took over all of the museums and UNESCO heritage sites. With a stated mission of destruction of artifacts (or their sale overseas on the black market), Daesh set about looking for the rarest, most expensive artifacts in the collection. Unfortunately for them, al-Asaad had evacuated some artifacts and hidden many more. For weeks he was held and tortured, but he never broke down and revealed the location of the artifacts. For this he was beheaded publicly, his body left up on display as a warning to others.

Palmyra is more or less liberated now. Already teams from as far away as the United Kingdom are preparing to descend on the ancient city to begin estimating the costs of repairs and taking tally of the damages. Thanks to the efforts of one extremely brave man, future generations will be able to better understand and enjoy historical artifacts that were saved from sure destruction at the hands of Daesh. I think it's important to remember people like him in a world that so often only showcases the nastiest parts of humanity.

Tale of a Syrian T-55

Tale of a Syrian T-55

This Syrian T-55 looks more ready to retake the Golan Heights circa 1967 than engage in modern mechanized combat. One of the reasons the Syrian civil war has been so destructive and violent is the utter amount of surplus military hardware that was kicking around the country. 

The last semi-accurate report by IISS stated that the Syrian Arab Army had in its active/semi-active inventory around 4,900 main battle tanks of various kinds, putting them in 4th place for most active MBTs in the world behind the US, China and Russia. The tank in question, one of roughly 2,200 various models of T-55 in service with the SAA (T-55, T-55AM, T-55AMV, plus local DIY variants as of the civil war), was of a model originally designed in the Soviet Union at the tail end of WWII and designated the T-54, the latest in a series of successful tanks starting with the T-34 (which remained in service from 1940 in the USSR until present-day in some countries), which was upgraded and turned into the T-44 before finally morphing into the T-54/55. Thus, the vehicle was designed with outgunning Nazi tanks at the end of the war, tanks like the Panther and Tiger II, but also with mass production in mind to compete with the sheer numbers of Western tanks coming off the line. 

With what was some of the thickest armor and the largest caliber gun on a tank in the world at the time, the T-54/55 sent fear down the spines of NATO commanders in Europe. Thus, when the tanks began turning up in Syrian stockpiles around 1957, commanders in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) became understandably nervous. The tanks in service today are largely replacement vehicles shipped to Syria from the USSR to compensate Syria for losses in the 1973 Yom Kippur war, but it is possible that this tank in particular is a survivor of at least that war and possibly others. 

The T-54/55; designed for combat against NATO, purchased by Syria for desert mechanized warfare against the Israelis, and pressed into service by the SAA as a machine used by Syrians to kill their fellow Syrians. Finally, it was captured at least once by one of the various rebel factions. Anyway there's your little history lesson for the day, hope you enjoyed it.