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October 23, 2016

Sunday, October 23, 2016 - ,,,, No comments

Another case for the ICC? Iconoclast who detonated the Maqam of Prophet Yunus (Jonah) confesses on tape after capture

In Mosul's frightening and uncertain future, perhaps one bit of hopeful news may be developing.  It appears that the Iraqi Shi'ite paramilitary group Al Nujaba has released a video with a captured combatant who claims to have been one of the iconoclasts responsible for the destruction of the Shrine of Jonah/Mosque of Yunus (Nineveh, Mosul, Iraq). 



The newly released video also appears to circle out a specific male individual who, from the footage, also seems to be implicated in the destruction of statues and artifacts within the Mosul Museum.

During the video, the captured militant admits that he was part of Daesh's Hisbah [the religious police] and admits to bombing three different bridges as well as taking part in the attacks on the Hatra ruins and the destruction at Prophet Yona's tomb. 

The Mosul Museum is the second largest museum in Iraq after the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad.  A video showing the destruction of historic artifacts was widely circulated by Daesh on February 26, 2015.

As the image in the recent video is quite blurry, ARCA has uploaded a screenshot from the original Mosul Museum destruction video which shows the individual, dressed in a long sleeved robe called a dishdasha, in higher definition. 


Military offensives to recapture cities from a dug-in military force are always fraught with peril.  If fighting forces manage to recapture the city of Mosul, it will be the fifth time in thirteen years of conflict that the city has changed hands since 2003. As the history of previous offensives in Iraq has painfully demonstrated, in liberating Mosul, one group’s victory does not necessarily bode equally well for others divided along different ethnic and sectarian lines.

By: Lynda Albertson

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