Nineveh was near modern Mosul but on the other side of the river. Shalmaneser V (726-722 B.C.) besieged and captured Samaria (2 Kings 17.4-6 & 18.9), but apparently the actual deportation of the Israelites took place under his successor Sargon II (721-705). Ashurbanipal is later (668-c. 627 B.C.)
Ran across an old classic, Austen Henry Layard's
Nineveh and Its Remains, published in 1849. At one point he speaks of it taking three hours to gallop from the ruins to Mosul (but I didn't look carefully through the text--maybe there were other ruins closer to Mosul).
Layard speaks of the governor of Mosul at the time, one Mohammed Pasha, known as Keritli Oglu (the son of the Cretan). He remarks (sarcastically) that the governor "had revived many good old customs and impositions, which the reforming spirit of the age had suffered to fall into decay. He particularly insisted on dish-parassi; or a compensation in money, levied upon all villages in which a man of such rank is entertained, for the wear and tear of his teeth in masticating the food he condescends to receive from the inhabitants."