URGENT: ISIL destroys Mosul mosques, pillages contents

Mosul (IraqiNews.com) A Security source said on Sunday that the terrorist organization of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant stormed the mosques of Al- Sabunji and Al- khodr in the central of Mosul and stole its contents.

Terrorist elements of ISIL seized control of Mosul since last month. The source in Nineveh province, said earlier that the terrorist elements of ISIL desecrated the shrine of Imam Sultan bin Asim Abdullah ibn Umar ibn al-Khattab and destroyed it with a number of IEDs in the southeast of Mosul as also reported by IraqiNews.com yesterday.

Islamic militant sect, ISIS, which has been rampaging across the north and west of Iraq since last month, has been demolishing sacred sites such as shrines and mosques around the historic northern city of Mosul in Nineveh province.

Photographs from the area posted online under the banner “Demolishing shrines and idols in the state of Nineveh” depicted mosques being turned into piles of rubble – explosives deployed against Shiite buildings – and bulldozers flattening the shrines.

At least four shrines to Sunni Arab or Sufi figures have been destroyed by the bulldozers. The structures had been built around graves of Muslim saints. Six Shiite mosques have also been destroyed using explosives.

Crosses at the front of Mosul’s Chaldean cathedral and Syrian Orthodox cathedral were removed and replaced with the black flag of the Islamic State.

“Dozens of men, women and children formed a human wall and surrounded the sacred shrine of Sheikh Fathi in al-Mushahada neighbourhood of western Mosul and prevented the terrorists from storming it,” Ninawa tribal council deputy head Ibrahim al-Hassan said in a statement following the incident.

Sheikh Fathi’s shrine – one of Mosul’s most important, dating back to 1760, was among those destroyed.

Yesterday, IraqiNews.com had reported the desecration and looting of the grave of Prophet Younis (biblical Jonah) in Mosul: http://www.iraqinews.com/features/urgent-isil-dug-grave-prophet-younis-mosul/

 

In just one day, ISIL members committed a series of horrific crimes which illustrate their hostile nature, said Iraqi police in Nineveh spokesman Maj. Ahmed al-Obaidi.

“They torched 11 churches and monasteries out of 35 scattered across the city of Mosul, and hours later destroyed statues of poets, literary and historical figures of which Mosul has long been proud,” he said.