It shouldn’t be news. I mentioned the possibility in 2005, and again late last year. When you buy unprovenanced antiquities you don’t know who you’re buying them from.

Now the Ashland Daily Tidings reports on the work by Matthew Bogdanos, which he says shows that the connection between the trade in illicit antiquities and Islamic insurgents is undeniable. Yes, you read that right. It turns out some members of Al-Qaeda are prone to criminal activity.

Despite that fair-play to Antonia Kimbell at the Art Loss Register who said that she’s seen no evidence of a direct link. The way the Art Loss Register works is they check a database of illicit artefacts. Obviously that means that someone needs to have registered an artefact as illicit, but that’s not a problem so long as Al-Qaeda remember to fill out the paperwork.

I went to look at David Gill’s blog to fact check the workings of the Art Loss Register because Kimbell’s comments seemed unfeasibily moronic. I can’t believe someone that credulous would be able to hold down a job at the Art Loss Register if it worked the way I described it. But it does, and David Gill is also blogging this story.

There’s a lot of things I’d like to see happen with the Iraqi occupation. One is that I’d like to see UK and US governments support our soldiers by making it harder for ‘art collectors’ to fund the enemy. If you’d like to read more about how you can fund the killing of British and American soldiers and pick up a nice antiquity into the bargain then you can read Looting Matters, Illicit Cultural Property and Safe Corner.