IS destroys iconic mosque in Mosul
BAGHDAD— As the bloody battle to retake Mosul from the Islamic State ground on for months, with losses in lives and infrastructure piling up, soldiers and civilians kept in their minds an image of what victory would look like: capturing the historic, and symbolic, Al Nuri Grand Mosque and its distinctive leaning minaret.
It was there, in the summer of 2014, that the Islamic State leader, Abu Bakr alBaghdadi, ascended a pulpit and declared a caliphate after his fighters took control of Mosul and swept through other parts of northern Iraq and Syria. It was the last time Mr. Baghdadi was seen in public.
On Wednesday night, with the terrorist group on the cusp of losing control of Mosul and with it its claim to a caliphate straddling the border of Iraq and Syria, Islamic State fighters packed the building with explosives and took it down.
The destruction of the mosque and minaret — which has dominated Mosul’s skyline for centuries and is pictured on Iraq’s 10,000 dinar bank note — is another blow to the city’s rich cultural heritage and its plethora of ancient sites that have been damaged or destroyed during three years of Islamic State rule.
Suspect was Moroccan
BRUSSELS— The quick shooting of an attacker who tried to detonate a nail bomb and shouted “Allahu akbar” at a Brussels train station averted fatalities, officials said Wednesday, as Belgium increased security measures around the country.
The attacker was a 36-year old Moroccan national not known to authorities for being involved in terror activities, federal magistrate Eric Vander Sypt told reporters. He declined to say if the man hada criminal record.
The man charged soldiers at Brussels Central Station on Tuesday after his suitcase, containing nails and gas canisters, failed to fully explode, Mr. Van der Sypt said. It was a lucky escape for several travelers nearby.
Aftera national security council meeting, Prime Minister Charles Michel said that although there was no indication that another attack was imminent, security would nonetheless be intensified.
Romanian government
Romania’s most powerful politicalparty ousted its own primeminister on Wednesday, throwing the country, which witnessed giant anticorruption protests this year, into new political turmoil.
The governing party, the Social Democrats, has been embroiled in an intraparty feud, one that now threatens the fragile political stability of the country.
The center-left party won a comfortable victory in December and formed a coalition government. But it angered many Romanians when it proposed legislation that would have essentially pardoned officials imprisoned for bribery and raised the financial threshold above which official misconduct is punishable by prison.
Meanwhile, the party has been split by a power struggle between the prime minister, Sorin Grindeanu, and the party’s leader, Liviu Dragnea.
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