Oldest Christian monastery in Iraq razed by IS

The oldest Christian monastery in Iraq has been reduced to a field of rubble, yet another victim of the Islamic State’s relentless destruction of ancient cultural sites.

For 1,400 years, the compound survived assaults by nature and man, standing as a place of worship recently for U.S. troops.

In earlier centuries, generations of monks tucked candles in the niches and prayed in the cool chapel. The Greek letters chi and rho, representing the first two letters of Christ’s name, were carved near the entrance.

Satellite photos bear proof

Now satellite photos obtained exclusively by The Associated Press confirm the worst fears of church authorities and preservationists that St Elijah’s Monastery of Mosul 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.

‘Bid to expel Christians here’

“I can’t describe my sadness,” he said in Arabic. “Our Christian history in Mosul is being barbarically levelled. We see it as an attempt to expel us from Iraq, eliminating and finishing our existence in this land.”

The IS group, which broke from the al-Qaeda and now controls large parts of Iraq and Syria, has killed thousands of civilians and forced out hundreds of thousands of Christians, threatening a religion that has endured in the region for 2,000 years.

For IS, history doesn’t matter

Along the way, its fighters have destroyed buildings and ruins of historical and culturally significant structures they consider contrary to their interpretation of Islam.

Those who knew the monastery wondered about its fate after the extremists swept through in June 2014 and largely cut communications to the area.

Now, St. Elijah’s has joined a growing list of more than 100 demolished religious and historic sites, including mosques, tombs, shrines and churches in Syria and Iraq. The extremists have defaced or ruined ancient monuments in Nineveh, Palmyra and Hatra.

Museums, libraries ravaged

Museums and libraries have been looted, books burned, artwork crushed or trafficked.

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U.S. allies will not relent in fight against Islamic State, says Obama

U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday said the United States and its allies would not relent in the fight against Islamic State extremists and would hunt down their leaders and cut off the group's financing.

“Destroying [Islamic State] is not only a realistic goal, were going to get it done,” he said ata a news conference after a meeting of Asian leaders in Malaysia.

“We will destroy them. We will take back land they are currently in, take out their financing, hunt down leadership, dismantle their networks, supply lines and we will destroy them.”

Mr. Obama said it "would be helpful" if Russia directed its focus on tackling Islamic State and he hoped Moscow would agree to a leadership transition in Syria that meant its president stepping down.

Ban urges Russia, U.S. to cooperate on terrorism

The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that he has urged Russia and the United States to cooperate on rooting out terrorism.

"All these terrorists and ideology extremists should be defeated in the name of humanity," he said at the annual East Asia Summit this year hosted in Kuala Lumpur.

"In that regard, we need to unite. We need to show global solidarity to address the common enemy of ISIL, Daesh, some other extremists and terrorist groups," he said, referring to Islamic State.

Mr. Obama said at the same summit the United States and its allies would not relent in the fight to combat Islamic State extremists and would hunt down their leaders and cut off the group's financing.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday he wanted global cooperation to combat terrorism after Islamist militants killed 19 people, including six Russians, in an attack on a luxury hotel in Mali.

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UN approves resolution urging action against IS

The UN Security Council unanimously approved a French-sponsored resolution calling on all nations to redouble and coordinate action to prevent further attacks by Islamic State terrorists and other extremist groups.

The resolution says the Islamic State group “constitutes a global and unprecedented threat to international peace and security” and expresses the council’s determination “to combat by all means this unprecedented threat.”

The measure is the 14th terrorism-related resolution adopted yesterday by the UN’s most powerful body since 1999.

It was adopted a week after violent extremists launched a coordinated gun and bomb assault that killed 130 people in Paris which the Islamic State claims it carried out.

It also comes eight days after twin suicide bombings in Beirut killed 43 people, and three weeks after a Russian airliner crashed over Egypt’s Sinai peninsula killing all 224 people on board both attacks also claimed by IS.

The resolution “unequivocally condemns in the strongest terms” these and earlier “horrifying terrorist attacks” carried out by the Islamic State this year in Souses, Tunisia and Ankara, Turkey.

The resolution calls on UN member states “that have the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures” against the Islamic State group and all other violent extremist groups “to eradicate the safe haven they have established over significant parts of Iraq and Syria.”

This does not constitute an authorization for military action, however, because the resolution is not drafted under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter which is the only way the United Nations can give a green light to the use of force.

The resolution urges UN member states “to intensify their efforts to stem the flow of foreign terrorist fighters in Iraq and Syria and to prevent and suppress the financing on terrorism.”

In September 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama chaired a Security Council meeting where members unanimously adopted a resolution requiring all countries to prevent the recruitment and transport of would—be foreign fighters preparing to join terrorist organisations such as the Islamic State group.

In February, the council adopted a resolution aimed at tightening its crackdown on financing terrorist groups through illicit oil sales, trading in antiquities and paying ransom for hostages.

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