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In Iraq’s Mosul, radicals unleash their vision

FILE - In this Monday, June 8, 2009 file photo, residents walk past the al-Hadba minaret in a busy market area in Mosul, Iraq. The fear, anger and sadness was palpable across Mosul on Saturday, July 26, 2014 as rumors made their way across Iraq’s second-largest city. The militants who had taken over and purged it of some of its most cherished landmarks were eyeing their next target: al-Hadba minaret, an 842-year old tower that leans, like Italy’s Tower of Pisa _ one of the country’s most famous structures which decorates the 10,000 dinar bill until today.(AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File)
FILE - In this Monday, June 8, 2009 file photo, residents walk past the al-Hadba minaret in a busy market area in Mosul, Iraq. The fear, anger and sadness was palpable across Mosul on Saturday, July 26, 2014 as rumors made their way across Iraq’s second-largest city. The militants who had taken over and purged it of some of its most cherished landmarks were eyeing their next target: al-Hadba minaret, an 842-year old tower that leans, like Italy’s Tower of Pisa _ one of the country’s most famous structures which decorates the 10,000 dinar bill until today.(AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File) FILE - In this Monday, June 8, 2009 file photo, residents walk past the al-Hadba minaret in a busy market area in Mosul, Iraq. The fear, anger and sadness was palpable across Mosul on Saturday, July 26, 2014 as rumors made their way across Iraq’s second-largest city. The militants who had taken over and purged it of some of its most cherished landmarks were eyeing their next target: al-Hadba minaret, an 842-year old tower that leans, like Italy’s Tower of Pisa _ one of the country’s most famous structures which decorates the 10,000 dinar bill until today.(AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File)

By Associated Press 6 min read

BAGHDAD (AP) – Residents of Mosul have watched helplessly as extremists ruling the northern Iraqi city blew up some of their most beloved landmarks and shrines to impose a stark vision of Islam. Next up for destruction, they feared: the Crooked Minaret, a more than 840-year-old tower that leans like Italy’s Tower of Pisa.

But over the weekend, residents pushed back. When fighters from the Islamic State group loaded with heavy explosives converged on the site, Mosulis living nearby rushed to the courtyard below the minaret, sat on the ground and linked arms to form a human chain to protect it, two residents who witnessed the event told The Associated Press on Monday.

They told the fighters, If you blow up the minaret, you’ll have to kill us too, the witnesses said.

The militants backed down and left, said the witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from the militants.

But residents are certain the militants will try again. Over the past two weeks, the extremists ruling Iraq’s second largest city have shrugged off previous restraint and embarked on a brutal campaign to purge Mosul of anything that challenges their radical interpretation of Islam, even Muslim shrines that in their iconoclastic fervor they condemn as apostasy.