Reconstruction of Mosul’s minaret to take place in March: Source
Al-Hadbaa (leaning) minaret in the Grand Nuri al-Kabir mosque in western Mosul.
A delegation from UNESCO visited the location of the Hadbaa minaret to acknowledge the main needs for reconstruction, after it was blown up by Islamic State militants as the Iraqi troops invaded al-Farouq district, in Mosul’s Old City, by end of June, an informed source from Nineveh said in remarks.
“The reconstruction process will start in March 2018,” the source, who asked to remain anonymous added.
In June, Abdul-Ghani al-Assadi, commander of the army’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service, said the medieval Grand Nuri al-Kabir Mosque and its famous Hadbaa (leaning) Minaret was already been booby-trapped.
The minaret’s collapse came as troops were tens of meters away from the mosque, partaking in an invasion of the Old City.
It was from that mosque when The group’s supreme leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his first appearance in a video him making the sermon proclaiming the establishment of an Islamist “caliphate” in the Old City’s Grand Nuri Mosque in June 2014, and never showed up again.
In July, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory in Mosul after defeating IS in the Old City.