Ancient treasures pillaged from conflict zones in the Middle East are being offered for sale on Facebook, researchers say, including items that may have been looted by Islamic State militants. He has monitored the trade for years along with his colleagues at the Athar Project, named for the Arabic word for antiquities. At the same time, Dr. Al-Azm said, social media lowered the barriers to entry to the marketplace. Now there are at least 90 Facebook groups connected to the illegal trade in Middle Eastern antiquities, with tens of thousands of members, he said. Some users circulate requests for certain types of items, providing an incentive for traffickers to produce them, a scenario that Dr. Al-Azm called “loot-to-order.”

Source: International New York Times May 09, 2019 09:02 UTC