Retreating ISIS blows up iconic Mosul minaret
Mosul’s trademark leaning minaret was missing from its skyline for the first time in centuries Thursday after desperate jihadis blew it up as Iraqi forces advanced on an ancient mosque compound.
Explosions on Wednesday evening levelled the Nuri mosque where Abu Bakr alBaghdadi gave his first sermon as leader of the ISIS group and its ancient leaning minaret, known as the (Hunchback).
Officials from Iraq and “Hadba” They blew up this place in an attempt to cover up their heavy losses in the media, but the media and the people see the victories and see the collapse of ISIS
— Brig. Gen. Falah Fadel
al-Obeidi
the US-led anti-ISIS coalition said the destruction of the site was a sign of the jihadist group’s imminent loss of Mosul, with Prime Minister Haider alAbadi calling it an “official declaration of defeat”.
The loss of the unmistakeable 12th century minaret — one of the country’s most recognisable monuments sometimes referred to as Iraq’s Tower of Pisa — left the country in shock.
But the destruction had been widely anticipated, with commanders saying ISIS would not have allowed Iraqi forces to score a hugely symbolic victory by recapturing the site.
“They blew up this place in an attempt to cover up their heavy losses in the media, but the media and the people see the victories and see the collapse of Daesh (ISIS),” Brigadier General Falah Fadel al-Obeidi, from the elite Counter-Terrorism Service, told AFP in Mosul.
ISIS claimed on its Amaq propaganda agency that the site was hit in a US strike, but the US-led coalition said it was the jihadists who had destroyed it.