The Associated Press obtained Satellite images confirming that the oldest Christian monastery in Iraq has been reduced to a field of rubble.
St. Elijah’s Monastery of Mosul,that for 1,400 years survived the assaults of man and nature, event being used as a recent place of worship for US troops, has been completely wiped out.
In his office in exile in Irbil, Iraq, the Rev. Paul Thabit Habib, 39, stared quietly at before- and after-images of the monastery that once perched on a hillside above his hometown of Mosul. Shaken, he flipped back to his own photos for comparison.
“I can’t describe my sadness,” he said to the AP in Arabic. “Our Christian history in Mosul is being barbarically leveled. We see it as an attempt to expel us from Iraq, eliminating and finishing our existence in this land.”