BAGHDAD, July 25 (UPI) -- A holy site believed to be the Tomb of Jonah in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul was destroyed by militants associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Civil defense officials told CNN that the militants rigged the tomb with explosives before detonating it remotely on Thursday.
A YouTube video has surfaced, purportedly showing the attack on Jonah's Tomb, located inside a Sunni mosque called the Mosque of the Prophet Younis.
ISIS has vowed to destroy shrines considered "un-Islamic." In June, the Sunni extremist group destroyed seven Shiite places of worship in Tal Afar.
Christians have fled Mosul after ISIS distributed leaflets to Christian leaders in Mosul, threatening violence if they don't convert and pay extra taxes to the Islamic Sharia courts. Failure to do so, the letters warned, would result in "death by the sword."
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