Great sites such as Uruk and Nippur survived, but Babylon was badly damaged, and isolated sites have been systematically looted – Umma, one of the world's earliest cities, is now pockmarked by illicit diggers' pits; clay tablets from temple libraries have appeared on the art market.
In the past year, government armouries in the CAR have been systematically looted, often by Islamist rebels who were beaten back with French help but managed to take the weapons with them.
Czech officials charge that top management systematically looted I.P.B., which had about $7 billion in deposits in 1999, by making questionable loans and transferring more than $1 billion of assets to shell companies worldwide.
Having won Chiang's blessing, the Soviets systematically looted Manchuria of industrial equipment and reassumed their old rights on the Chinese Eastern railway.
The residents of Arnhem and Oosterbeek (over 450 of whom had been killed in the battle) were evicted from their homes which were then systematically looted of anything of value to aid refugees in Germany.
Justinian had somewhat neglected the army in the East, and in 540 Khosrow moved into Mesopotamia, northern Syria, and Byzantine Armenia and systematically looted the key cities.
Experts say the region is being systematically looted of diamonds, gold, timber and other resources.
Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz, the two former Tyco bosses, "systematically looted" the conglomerate of more than $150m£80m0m), prosecutors claimed yesterday as the retrial of the two men began in Manhattan.
Over the next two decades, as Haiti was brutalized and systematically looted by Francois Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude, Mr. Dominique was among the few who pleaded for human rights.
Abidjan's residents described a harsh environment in which food stores were systematically looted and young men from the countryside patrolled the streets with weapons.
