Damascus - Islamic States (IS) militants have destroyed a temple at Syria's ancient ruins of Palmyra.
The Baalshamin Temple was destroyed on Sunday, according to the Turkish based activist Osama al-Khatib.
But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in Britain said it was, in fact, blown up a month ago.
Both sources said the blast also damaged some of Palmyra's famed columns.
This latest attack comes just six days after Palmyra scholar Khaled al-Asaad was beheaded by extremists.
And it follows the emergence of a new video of Mohammed Emwazi, the IS murderer thought to be responsible for executing at least seven hostages.
He has been recorded unmasked on video footage threatening to return to Britain and continue his executions.
Emwazi has earned international condemnation for appearing - masked - in several films beheading a succession of prisoners.
In a new video, the 27-year-old Londoner has declared he plans to come back to Britain with the leader of IS to continue “cutting heads”.
In the footage obtained by The Mail on Sunday, Emwazi, swathed in black, reportedly looks directly at the camera and states clearly in a British accent: “I am Mohammed Emwazi. I will soon go back to Britain with the Khalifa [leader of IS]. I will carry on cutting heads. We will kill the kuffar [non-Muslims].”
This latest film is thought to have been shot two months ago on a mobile phone in the desert near the IS-held town of Deir Ezzor in south-east Syria.
It is the first time the former Westminster University student has been seen unmasked in any IS footage, although pictures of him emerged during his school and student days when his identity was revealed in February.
And it scotches previous speculation that Emwazi had fled with the extremists to Libya.
The film is believed to have been secretly obtained by rebel fighters of the Free Syrian Army, who passed it to a colleague known as Abu Rashid, in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia.
Mr Rashid, originally from Aleppo in Syria, is believed to have passed a copy to Bulgarian counter-terrorist police.
A clip of the film was shown by The Mail on Sunday to one of the UK's leading experts on facial mapping, a former policeman, who said: “The images lend support to the contention that they are the same person.”
The Independent