Displaced Iraqi boys cry after their father was killed by a mortar launched by Daesh militants at Samah neighbourhood during a fight between the militants and the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service in Mosul, Iraq, on Sunday (Reuters photo)

MOSUL, Iraq — Iraqi forces said on Sunday they had recaptured the site of an ancient Assyrian city blown up by the Daesh terror group, as they battled the extremists south of Mosul. The commander of the Mosul operation, Lt Gen Abdul-Amir Raheed Yar Allah, said troops retook the town after heavy fighting and released a statement saying that “the 9th division of the Iraqi army has liberated the town of Nimrud completely and raised the Iraqi flag over its buildings after the enemy suffered heavy casualties”. Video footage released by the jihadis at the time showed bearded men hammering, bulldozing and ultimately blowing up parts of the ancient Iraqi treasure, ripping down huge alabaster reliefs depicting Assyrian kings and deities. Nimrud lies on the eastern bank of the Tigris river, about 30 km (20 miles) south of Mosul where Iraqi soldiers and special forces are battling Islamic State for control of the largest city under the jihadists' control in Iraq and neighboring Syria.
The ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, south of Mosul, is recaptured by the Iraqi Army after heavy fighting with ISIL militants.