BAGHDAD — The UN cultural agency has discovered five bombs hidden within the walls of the historic al-Nouri mosque in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, a remnant of the Government of the Islamic State militant group about the area, UNESCO said in a statement Saturday.
The mosque, famous for its 12th-century leaning minaret, was destroyed by IS in 2017 and has been a focal point of UNESCO restoration efforts since 2020.
The U.N. agency said five large-scale explosive devices, designed for significant destruction, were found inside the southern wall of the Prayer Hall on Tuesday.
“These explosive devices were hidden within a specially reconstructed section of the wall,” the statement said. “Iraqi authorities were quickly notified, secured the area and the situation is now fully under control.”
He added that “one bomb has been defused and removed, while the remaining four are interconnected and will be safely removed in the coming days.”
Iraqi authorities have requested that UNESCO stop all reconstruction operations at the al-Nouri mosque and evacuate the entire complex until the devices are dismantled.
IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared an Islamic caliphate of the mosque a decade ago, on June 29, 2014, leading to its destruction when extremists blew it up during the battle to liberate Mosul in 2017.
The discovery of these bombs highlights the current challenges in clearing Mosul of explosives and revitalizing its devastated urban areas.
International efforts, supported by the United Nations, are focused on demining and assisting in the city’s recovery. Despite progress, much of the ancient city of Mosul remains in ruins, marked by signs warning of minefields, highlighting the complexity of post-conflict reconstruction.
UNESCO aims to complete the full reconstruction of the al-Nouri mosque by December, “finally erasing the stigma of the Daesh occupation,” the statement said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group’s name.
A decade after the Islamic State group declared their caliphate in much of Iraq and Syria, the extremists no longer control any territory, have lost many prominent leaders, and are mostly out of the world’s news headlines.
Still, the group continues to recruit members and claim responsibility for deadly attacks around the worldeven lethal operations in Iran and Russia earlier this year that left dozens dead. Is sleeper cells in Syria and Iraq continue to carry out attacks against government forces in both countries, as well as against US-backed Syrian fighters, at a time when Iraq’s government is negotiating with Washington over a possible withdrawal of US troops.
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