Blown to bits, famed Syria temple falls victim to Turkey assault

For 3,000 years, the lion sculptures of Syria's Ain Dara stood as testaments to the Iron Age. Syrian and Kurdish authorities have blamed the damage squarely on Ankara's nearly two-week offensive on Afrin, a Kurdish-controlled pocket of northwest Syria that borders Turkey. Perched on a hilltop in northern Syria, the neo-Hittite temple of Ain Dara dates back to the Aramaic era from around 1,300 to 700 BC, and is named after a village located in Afrin.