RELIGION OF PIECES: Radical Islamists take hammer to Syrian artifacts.

Fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a radical militia that controls a large swath of eastern Syria, confiscated and destroyed illegally excavated antiquities from an ancient Mesopotamian site. . . .

The destruction of Assyrian antiquities was not the first assault against Syrian archaeological treasures committed by ISIL. In January 2014, the radical Islamist group blew up and destroyed a sixth-century Byzantine mosaic near the city of Raqqa, the Independent reported. The pristine Roman-style mosaic had only been discovered in 2007.