Iraq police raze down Islamic State’s “Caliph” mosque in Mosul
Armoured fighting vehicles of the Counter Terrorism Service maneuver at the positions of the Iraqi forces near the Grand al-Nuri Mosque at the Old City in Mosul, Iraq June 29, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro
Mosul (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi security forces have embarked on a campaign to eliminate all traces of the existence of Islamic State’s existence in Mosul, starting with a mosque set up by the militant group’s leader.
An official Iraqi security source told Anadolu Agency that Federal Police forces began Wednesday to bring down what is left of the “caliph” mosque, also named the “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi” mosque, after the group’s supreme leader who proclaimed the establishment of its rule over Iraq and Syria from Mosul in 2014.
Ghazi al-Jaff, from the Federal Police’s fifth division, said the service’s engineering squad, began to remove the wrecks of the mosque.
He said the group used the mosque as a private religious spot and ran “many terrorist activities” from there.
The mosque was inaugurated in July 2015 in Bab al-Toub neighborhood, and served as a headquarter for Islamic State’s Hisbah “vigilantes” teams.
On July 10th, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory over IS militants who had held the second largest Iraqi city of Mosul since 2014. More than 25000 militants were killed throughout the campaign, which started in October 2016.