ISIL militants blow up Mosul's landmark al-Nuri mosque

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ISIL militants have blown up Mosul's historic al-Nuri mosque and its leaning minaret, as Iraqi forces continue their push near the Mosque area in western Mosul, the Iraqi military said.

The extremist militants destroyed the mosque building and its minaret as the commandos of the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) forces were advancing to new positions, just 50 meters away from the landmark structure in center of the old city in the western side of Mosul, the Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a statement.

The mosque with its famous leaning minaret, which gave the city its nickname "al-Hadbaa" or "the hunchback," has a symbolic value, as it was the place where ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the establishment of their cross-border "caliphate" in Iraq and Syria in his sole public appearance in July 2014.

The move of ISIL militants came as the CTS commandos launched a new push since the early morning toward al-Nuri mosque and the surrounding areas, fighting fierce house-to-house battles and recapturing some alleys near the mosque.

A still image taken from video shows the destroyed Grand al-Nuri Mosque of Mosul in Iraq, June 21, 2017. /VCG Photo

During the past few weeks, the CTS forces, federal police and army soldiers made slow progress because of the stiff resistance of ISIL militants and a large number of roadside bombs and booby-trapped buildings, in addition to ISIL snipers who took positions in the buildings of heavily-populated neighborhoods.

According to UN reports, some 100,000 civilians are still trapped in ISIL-held areas in the old city center and the adjacent al-Shifaa neighborhood, with the terrorist group using the civilians as human shields.

Iraqi forces, backed by a US-led international coalition, launched their final push on Sunday morning to drive out ISIL militants from al-Shifaa neighborhood and most of the densely-populated old city center in the western side of Mosul, locally known as the right bank of Tigris River.

Mosul, 400 km north of Iraq's capital Baghdad, has been under ISIL control since June 2014, when government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling ISIL militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions.

(Source: Xinhua)

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