Between June 2014 and late December 2015, ISIL carried out multiple intentional destructions of major cultural heritage sites across Mosul. ISIL destroyed shrines, graveyards, and mosques because they believe people are praying to the people buried there instead of only to Allah — such supposed intercession is contrary to their beliefs. al-Arabiya reported on July 5, 2014 that four shrines to Sunni Arab or Sufi figures as well as six Shia mosques were destroyed across northern Ninawa province. They report that Sunni and Sufi shrines were bulldozed, while Shia mosques and shrines were destroyed by explosions. On July 29, 2014 the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) reported that ISIL had destroyed or occupied all 45 Christian institutions in Mosul. While later evidence confirmed that not as many sites were destroyed as originally reported by news organizations and in social media, all churches sustained some type of damage or occupation between 2014–2017. ASOR CHI has confirmed the total destruction of 32 religious sites, including shrines, mosques, churches, and cemeteries during ISIL’s three-year occupation. ISIL forces intentionally damaged Mar Ahudemmeh, Kanisat al-Sa’a, and the Church of the Holy Spirit. The destructions of al-Nuri al-Kabir Mosque and al-Habda Minaret were ISIL’s final intentional destructions in Mosul and represent cruel acts of retributory violence.

ISIL also intentionally destroyed or repurposed places of higher learning, including universities and libraries. Beginning in 2015, ISIL looted Mosul University and repurposed it as a teaching facility and munitions factory. Militants burned other education buildings that were either unused or deemed heretical. ISIL looted and vandalized the Mosul Central Library in 2014 and 2015, burning large parts of the library’s collections. The same fate befell Mosul University Library, where ISIL militants looted and burned books. The destruction to Mosul’s educational and cultural infrastructure promptedUNESCO General Director, Irina Bokova, to condemn the destruction stating, “this destruction marks a new phase in the cultural cleansing perpetrated in regions controlled by armed extremists in Iraq. It adds to the systematic destruction of heritage and the persecution of minorities that seeks to wipe out the cultural diversity that is the soul of the Iraqi people.”

ISIL also targeted Mosul’s archaeological heritage. The Assyrian site of Nineveh was looted by the group during their three-year occupation. Nebi Yunus, also known as the Tomb of Jonah, was destroyed by ISIL in 2014. Following the recapture of the area in 2017, various sources revealed, that ISIL had tunneled under the site into a Palace of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon in order to loot antiquities. The Mosul Museum was looted and vandalized in 2015. In 2016, the militants leveled the monumental Adad, Mashki, and Nergal city gates and destroyed sculptures inside the structures. ISIL dismantled the Palace of Sennacherib (the Southwest Palace) in 2016 and constructed a new road across the southern part of the archaeological mound which began in 2015 and was completed in 2016.

The start of the offensive to liberate Mosul led to an increase in military related damage to heritage sites. The US-led Coalition heavily bombed Mosul University in 2016, targeting 19 of the university’s buildings that were being used by ISIL. ASOR CHI recorded a total of 28 buildings damaged by military activity in 2016.

In 2017, Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) recaptured Mosul’s Eastern Bank and military operations turned to the Old City, ISIL’s last bastion. Since January 1, 2017, ASOR CHI has reported military damage to 57 heritage sites, 52 of which are located on the city’s West Bank. Due to ISIL’s media blackout, it is currently unclear when much of this damage occurred. The UN reports that 5,000 buildings were damaged and 490 were destroyed in the Old City alone, “The city’s basic infrastructure has also been hard hit, with six western districts almost completely destroyed and initial repairs expected to cost more than $1 billion, the United Nations estimates.”

Vandalism and theft as well as development threats to sites were not new issues when ISIL took control of Mosul. By 2010, modern development covered almost 40 percent of Nineveh, and looting was on the rise due to instability linked to insurgents. Caches of artifacts and other cultural property have begun appearing in liberated houses across Mosul, including natural history specimens, artifacts from museums and local archaeological sites, and books from libraries.As ASOR CHI has documented elsewhere in Iraq and Syria, liberation from ISIL does not end vandalism and theft. Recent photographs from al-Hadba Minaret show graffiti linked to Iraqi Security Forces (ISF).

The Future of Mosul

Mosul has now been liberated by a mixed group of Shia and Sunni Iraqi security forces, Shia Popular Mobilization Front (PMF) units, Kurdish Peshmerga Forces, and Iraqi-Christian militias. These different groups continue to control different neighborhoods in Mosul and the surrounding countryside. The sectarian nature of some of these armed groups has led to concern among the Sunni population of the city that sectarian retributory constitutes a major risk. After the capture of Tikrit and Fallujah, Shia militia members were accused of conducting sectarian revenge killings, as well as intentional destructions of Sunni religious sites, homes, and businesses. As the PMF remains an official branch of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), under the auspices of Baghdad, concern runs  high as to the level of impunity these forces may enjoy.

On the Kurdish front, Peshmerga forces are reluctant to return Iraqi territory captured in their efforts to push ISIL from the Nineveh Plains. Iraqi officials as well as Ninawa Governorate residents have already voiced concern that Kurdish forces may be attempting to hold the area in order to gain territory and exert political leverage. Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, Commander of the Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve,  has already cautioned that in order to keep “[ISIL] 2.0 from emerging, the Iraqi government is going to have to do something pretty significantly different” to avoid the same sectarian tensions that led to the fall of Mosul in 2014 and the rampant expansion of ISIL.

With the defeat of ISIL and the return of Iraqi governance, suicide bombings are on the rise and some experts predict a return to the low-level insurgency prominent in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003 that continued up until 2014. In addition to immediate challenges, longer term issues related to Mosul’s governance and political control of neighboring regions are still under negotiation.

The toll of the war on civilians is staggering. A generation of Iraqis have now grown up under the instability of the post-Saddam era and  the atrocities  of the Islamic State. In the battle to recapture Mosul, ISIL used civilians as human shields and targeted anyone attempting to flee, resulting in a traumatized population, many whom are now displaced. In Haider al-Abadi’s July 11 victory speech, he called for the unification of Iraq and lauded the victory over ISIL as one for Iraq by Iraqis. He further stated that the unity achieved to defeat ISIL must continue to rebuild the country. UN special representative Jan Kubis expressed his strong belief that any reconstruction work must run parallel to “robust political process to conduct elections and achieve national and societal reconciliation and rebuild the social fabric…The peace… must be based on solid foundations of unity, co-operation, justice, tolerance and coexistence starting at the societal, community and tribal levels to prevent falling back into the past and risk disastrous consequences.” Mosul’s cultural resources and cultural sector form integral and inextricable parts of such reconciliation and peacebuilding efforts.