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Article snippet: 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 al-Baghdadi, 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. For residents of Mosul and those who care about Iraq’s history, the destruction was yet another painful loss, after so many years of the Islamic State violently erasing a region’s history. Before the Islamic State took control of Mosul, Unesco had begun an effort to protect and rehabilitate the minaret, known as Al Hadba, or t... Link to the full article to read more