On Jan. 20, an antiquities smuggler in Baghdad was arrested while in possession of old manuscripts and artifacts. On May 31, an Iraqi man tried to smuggle artifacts through Najaf airport to a neighboring country. And on April 1, 2015, in Babil province a smuggling operation was thwarted when an Iraqi smuggler tried to hand over artifacts to a foreign woman. But overall, the number of smuggling operations has significantly decreased compared with 2003, when US forces entered Iraq and brought down Saddam Hussein’s regime, according to Haidar Abdul Wahid, the director general of investigations at the Tourism and Antiquities Authority.
In a statement Feb. 17, he said, “There have been significantly fewer illegal excavations in the southern provinces in Iraq after the cooperation and coordination between the Tourism and Antiquities Authority and the security forces.”
This view was reinforced by Hussein Falih, the director of Babil antiquities, who told Al-Monitor, “Smuggling is almost nonexistent in the ancient city of Babil. … The directorate began protecting the antiquities of Borsippa in southern Babel at the beginning of 2016, which would lead to fully ending the illegal excavations in the area.”
In Dhi Qar province, a research archaeologist who preferred not to be named told Al-Monitor, “The vast expanses of archaeological sites are guarded by protection staffers who do not have modern monitoring techniques. They only use primitive techniques. … The archaeological sites in Dhi Qar are subject to theft and illegal excavations on an ongoing basis. And there are no clear government plans to protect the sites.”
One of the main reasons for the continuing smuggling and illegal excavations of antiquities is the large number of archaeological sites in Iraq. They amount to roughly 13,000 sites as announced by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities on June 15, 2015. This number is too large for the limited protection capabilities available; even important historical sites are without adequate security protection. On April 14, a field trip by the police found that many artifacts are left out in the open.
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