Source: Reuters

PARIS/BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The United Arab Emirates will finance a $50.4 million project to rebuild Mosul’s Grand al-Nuri Mosque, famous for its eight-century-old leaning minaret, that was blown up by Islamic State militants last year, the United Nations said on Monday.

 

The destroyed Grand al-Nuri Mosque is seen in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq August 7, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

Reconstruction and restoration of the mosque and al-Hadba minaret will be in partnership with the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO, Iraq’s culture ministry and the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), Dubai’s media office said in a Twitter post.

Islamic State demolished the Grand al-Nuri Mosque, which dated to the 12th century, in the final weeks of the U.S.-backed Iraqi campaign that ousted the jihadists from Mosul, their de facto capital in Iraq, last July.