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Archaeologists in Mosul have made a stunning find beneath the Tomb of the Prophet Jonah that was destroyed by Islamic State militants in 2014: the long-hidden palace of ancient Assyrian King Sennacherib. Experts were documenting the jihadists’ destruction of the tomb’s ruins when they located the palace, which dates back to 600 B.C. ISIS had dug tunnels into the site in a search for ancient artifacts to plunder, according to media reports. The Telegraph reports that Iraqi archaeologist Layla Salih found a marble cuneiform inscription of Assyrian King Esarhaddon inside one of the tunnels. The inscription is believed to date...

ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has admitted the jihadi death cult's final defeat in the city of Mosul. Jihadis have been battled back for months as the city is stormed by special forces and tanks from the Iraqi Army – who last week retook Mosul Airport. Baghdadi has now delivered his "farewell speech" to ISIS fighters who are trapped in the city, telling those who can to "flee and hide in mountainous areas". ISIS fighters who cannot escape are urged to blow themselves up and kill as many Iraqi troops as possible. His speech revealed top commanders of ISIS are...

<p>Irbil, Iraq (CNN)The Iraqi army says it has recaptured a bridge across the River Tigris in west Mosul, where fierce battles are ongoing to oust ISIS of its last bastion in Iraq.</p> <p>While all five bridges linking the government-held eastern Mosul to the western part have been destroyed, the takeover of the Fourth Bridge will allow Iraqi forces to lay a ramp over the broken part and open a supply route from east.</p>

Iraqi forces and U.S. coalition troops are no longer burdened by strict rules of engagement, which some say have turned firepower requests into bureaucratic nightmares. U.S. Army Lt. Col. James Browning, commander of 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, recently spoke with reporters about a Dec. 26 directive that streamlined the process of delivering aid. The order, attributed to U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, was confirmed on Thursday by Air Force Col. John Dorrian, the U.S.-led coalition’s spokesman. “It changed the relationship [between forces],” Lt. Col. Browning told The Associated Press about...

Iraqi troops punched through the defenses of Islamic State extremists to recapture Mosul's airport on Thursday, establishing a foothold near the city’s western bank. Units from the federal police and its special forces branch, the Emergency Response Division, executed a pincer attack and struck the airport from several fronts, Lt. Gen. Raed Shaker Jawdat said in a statement Thursday. Jawdat said more than half of the airport had been taken and that forces were continuing to deal with Islamic state “pockets and ambushes.” He also reportedly said about 200 families were moved to safe areas controlled by the government. The...

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The global anti-ISIS coalition has destroyed a major ISIS administration facility housed in a medical building in west Mosul on Friday, stating that the building was no longer being used for civilian purposes.  The five-storey building was being used as an “ISIS command and control headquarters and propaganda facility,” reads a statement released by the coalition on Saturday.  The Bab Sinjar facility “was located in the Al Jumhuri medical community complex,” the statement detailed.  The coalition stated that they had confirmed the building was being used as a military command only and “civilians were no longer...

As dawn approached, units from the Iraqi federal police and Emergency Response Division mustered near the village of Lazaaqah, roughly six miles south of Mosul. As they approached, bullets from Islamic State snipers whistled past, even as helicopters flying overhead bore down on Islamic State positions with heavy gunfire and rockets.

ISIS amputate the hands of two boys aged ten and 12 who refused to execute two civilians in front of their families in MosulISIS have amputated the hands of two boys aged ten and 12 who refused to execute two civilians in front of their families in Mosul. Fanatics trained up a group of children from its stronghold in western parts of the city to fight against advancing Iraqi troops. But two of the youngsters refused to carry out the twisted demands of their terror bosses.

<p>Mosul (Iraq) (AFP) - In recaptured areas of Mosul, the extreme interpretation of Islam that jihadists forced on the local population for more than two years has sparked a backlash against religious observance.</p> <p>After the Islamic State group seized the city in June 2014, it made prayers compulsory for people who were outside their homes, banned smoking, mandated beards for men and veils for women, smashed artefacts it said were idolatrous, publicly executed homosexuals and cut off the hands of thieves.</p>

As the liberation of Mosul from the "Islamic State" group gathers pace, Iraq's second city has been coming back to life with remarkable speed. DW's Florian Neuhof reports from neighborhoods of freshly shaven men. On a street just off the main road leading to the last neighborhoods in eastern Mosul still under "Islamic State" (IS) control, people throng around produce-laden handcarts. Mortar rounds come crashing into the area with alarming frequency, exploding with a sharp, dry bang. The insurgents have made a habit of bombarding areas no longer under their control and consider anyone who failed to retreat with them...

Below are excerpts from an interview posted by François de Souche with the Orthodox Syriac Archbishop of Mosul concerning the plight of Christians in Iraq since the rise of the Islamic State. Many thanks to Ava Lon for the translation: Interview with Monsignor Nicodemus Daoud Sharaf, Orthodox Syriac Archbishop of Mosul, Kurdistan and Kirkuk on the aleteia site. Q: Don’t you worry about the people who stayed behind in Mosul?A: All Christians fled the city in 2014 from Daesh’s troops. Those who stayed, for the most part, welcomed them. Sometimes with open arms. The Sunni Muslim Arabs who live there...

The ancient city of Mosul, in Iraq, is currently experiencing an agonizing struggle between regular forces of the Iraqi Government, allied with the Kurdish Peshmurga , local Iraqi militias and supported by US and international coalition forces, seeking to wrest the city from the forces of the recently formed ISIS army. The joint operation is called in Arabic, Qadimun Ya Naynawa, translated “Oh Ninewa,Here We come!”. Can you see in the Arabic translation the name of an ancient Biblical city? Ninewa is the Arabic way of saying, “Ninevah”, the city which Jonah had once preached repentance unto, in spite of...

Allied troops and ISIS are set to battle for a collapsing dam that would spew nearly 600 times the water of the River Thames onto Mosul if it breaches. Engineers from an Italian company have been tasked with fixing the Mosul Dam's foundations to stop more than 11 trillion litres of water (11.11billion cubic metres) from flooding Mosul. Experts are warning their work could be in vain, and should the catastrophe happen, it is estimated 1.5million people could be killed by the floods in an impact described as 'worse than a nuclear bomb'. Waves of up to 45ft would be...

At least 90 Iraqi soldiers have lost their lives when fighter jets from the United States Air Force (USAF) mistakenly struck their position in Mosul as government forces and allied fighters are trying to flush Daesh terrorists out of the strategic northern city. An Iraqi army source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Arabic service of Russia’s Sputnik news agency on Saturday that the airstrike had targeted soldiers from the 9th Armored Division of the Iraqi army the previous day, destroying eight infantry fighting vehicles as well as four Humvee military trucks. Some 100 soldiers were also wounded as...

WARNING: One video clip shows drone footage of ISIS suicide attacks. Viewer Discretion is Advised. While the "Ring of Fire" is causing rumblings around the world, there are geopolitical earthquakes occurring at critical hotspots that are being overlooked by most. John explains the relevance and the potential fulfillment of the Damascus Prophecy.

Over 1,900 Iraqi security forces killed by ISIS as fight for Mosul rages ? December 3, 2016 ? Middle East & World Erbil ? At least 1,959 members of the Iraqi security forces have been killed since the launch of the anti-ISIS Mosul operation on 17 October, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI). “The number of civilians killed in November was 926, and the number of civilians injured was 930. Fifty-two foreign civilians were killed and 31 injured in November,” UNAMI said. “A total of 1,959 members of the Iraqi Security Forces were killed, including police...

AN SAS sniper has picked off his 100th Islamic State militant during fighting for the Iraqi city of Mosul. The impressive tally makes him one of the most successful snipers in the British armed forces. His latest kill is said to be a “high valued target” in the terror group, which has put up fierce resistance as the US-backed coalition attempts to recapture Iraq’s second city from the extremists. . . . Taking his position outside a compound that was once a base for former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the sharpshooter needed just a single bullet to punch through the...

Thousands of Mosul residents flee the city every day as the Iraqi army pushes farther into the city from the east. But despite suicide car bombs, airstrikes and the whizzing sound of bullets around them, when they emerge, one of the first things they ask for from the soldiers are cigarettes. For almost 2½ years, the Islamic State (IS) in Mosul projected an image that it was against the consumption of narcotics; in reality, however, it has reaped enormous funds from the trade. Ala Munir was at home one blistering day in July last year when four IS militants turned...

Some women in Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL)-controlled Mosul have said they are “much more afraid” of the jihadist group’s all-female “morality police,” or Khansaa Brigade, than the battle-hardened male terrorists, reports NBC News. The all-female units of the jihadist group’s “morality police,” also known as Hisbah, had been tasked with patrolling the streets of Mosul and enforcing an extreme version of Shariah law. Members of the Hisbah Khansaa Brigade favor a torture tool known as “the biter,” which refers to “metal prongs designed to clip chunks of flesh as punishment for women who violated strict ISIS’ dress codes,” NBC News learned...

U.S. forces backing an Iraqi army campaign against Islamic State in Mosul carried out an air strike on a bridge spanning the Tigris river, restricting militant movements between western and eastern parts of the city, a U.S. official said on Tuesday. U.S.-trained Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service forces are pushing deeper into east Mosul, the last major city controlled by the Sunni hard-line group in Iraq, while army and police units, Shi'ite militias and Kurdish fighters surround it to the west, south and north. Militants have steadily retreated into Mosul from outlying areas. The army's early advances have slowed as militants dig...