The Attraction of Superficial Models: Looting of Apamea again

The situation in April 2019
 (Wikipedia key here)

Qalaat Al Madiq was in the buffer zone on the southwestern edge of the current extent of the Aleppo-Idlib rebel enclave in northwest Syria. A news report prompted the following comment from the CulturalProperty twittersphere:"

Cultura Consulting ‏ @Cultura_CP notes 'The Syrian army has reportedly captured the town of Qalaat Al Madiq and the adjacent heavily looted ancient city of Apamea. Perhaps new info will emerge relating to this looting, likely carried out by rebel groups Ahrar Al Sham and local units fighting under the banner of the FSA'.

It really is so irritating to find glib myths persisting long after a whole bunch of you have been spending some time checking out what the US media and others are telling us about this 'looting', and publishing online (just a miniscule mouseclick away from wherever you are sitting) what you've found out. Anyway, the bulk of the looting that we know about at Apamea and the very similar pattern we see at Tel Jiffar had taken place before the area was taken over by the rebels (Saturday, 4 May 2013 Looting and Conflict in Syria - do you KNOW where those antiquities have come from?; Thursday, 16 October 2014  Syria, Who is Digging Up What Where?). I am not the only one doing this, Dr Sam Hardy has been even more active in this area.