Iraqis rue mosque’s destruction
MOSUL: “When I looked out of the window and saw the minaret was no longer there, I felt a part of me had died.”
For Ahmed Saied, a 54-year-old teacher, and many others here, life can never be the same after Islamic State (IS) militants blew up up the leaning minaret that had graced his city for 850 years.
Militants destroyed the Grand al-Nuri Mosque on Wednesday evening along with its famous minaret, affectionately called alHadba, or “the hunchback” by Iraqis. In the dawn light, all that remained was the base projecting from shattered masonry.
The destruction came as Iraqi forces closed on the mosque, which also carried enormous symbolic importance for IS, whose leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, used it in 2014 to declare a “caliphate” spanning swathes of of Syria and Iraq. His black flag had been flying on the 45m minaret since June 2014.
The insurgents chose to blow it up rather than see the flag taken down by United States-backed Iraqi forces battling through the maze of narrow alleys and streets of the Old City, the last district still under control of IS here.
“In the early morning, I climbed up to my house roof and was stunned to see the Hadba minaret gone,” said Nashwan, a labourer living in Khazraj neighbourhood near the mosque.
“I broke into tears. I felt I had lost a son of mine.”
The minaret was built with seven bands of decorative brickwork in complex geometric patterns also found in Iran and Central Asia. Its tilt and the lack of maintenance made it particularly vulnerable to blasts.
The media office for Iraq's military distributed a picture taken from the air that showed the mosque and minaret largely reduced to rubble.
A video on social media showed the minaret collapsing vertically, throwing up a pall of dust.
For many, the destruction of the minaret marked the final collapse of IS rule here.
“Blowing up the al-Hadba minaret and the al-Nuri mosque amounts to an official acknowledgement of defeat,” Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said yesterday on his website.
The mosque was destroyed as Iraq’s elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) fought their way to within 50m of it.
An Iraqi military spokesman gave the timing of the explosion as 9.35pm. The ground where the mosque stood was not yet taken as of midday yesterday.
Baghdadi proclaimed himself “caliph” from the mosque’s pulpit on July 4, 2014.
The fall of Mosul would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the “caliphate”, though IS would still hold territory west and south of the city. US-backed militias are closing on IS’s Syrian stronghold of Raqqa.
Baghdadi has left the fighting here to local commanders and is believed to be hiding in the border between Iraq and Syria.
The mosque was named after Nuruddin al-Zanki, a noble who fought early crusaders from a
fiefdom that covered territory in modern-day Turkey, Syria and Iraq. It was built in 1172-73, shortly before his death, and housed an Islamic school.
The mosque’s destruction occurred during the holiest period of Ramadan — its final 10 days.
The night of Laylat al-Qadr falls during this period, marking when Muslims believe the Quran was revealed to the prophet Muhammad.
“Many different enemies controlled Mosul over the past 900 years, but none of them dared to destroy the Hadba,” said Ziad, an arts student.
“By bombing the minaret, they proved that they are the worst of all barbarian groups in history.” Reuters