Syria handed over a trove of some 700 looted artifacts to Iraq on Wednesday after seizing the items from traffickers
Iraqi museums were pillaged of treasures dating back 5,000 years. U.S. officials said last month about 15,000 artifacts had been stolen from Iraq's famed National Museum and about 6,000 of those items had been recovered.
A U.S. investigator who led the probe into the looting said last month that trafficking of stolen Iraqi antiquities was helping finance al-Qaida in Iraq as well as Shiite militias.
Bogdanos, however, blamed most of the thefts from the National Museum on museum insiders and senior government officials.
clipped from: www.latimes.com