MOSCOW (Sputnik) — ISIL militants have destroyed numerous Christian graves in Iraq's second largest city of Mosul, a research institute reported.
According to Middle East Media Research Institute, the Islamic State information office published Thursday a series photographs depicting militants smashing gravestones with sledgehammers and defacing crosses.
The images are prefaced with religious justification for the militants' actions, stating that all graves higher than ground level have to be destroyed.
The Islamic State militants have been destroying numerous landmarks in Iraq in recent months.
A video released by ISIL in late February showed militants use sledgehammers to lay waste to a museum in Mosul, smashing precious statues and other pre-Islamic heritage artefacts that the ISIL describes as "false gods."
The militants also looted two ancient Iraqi cities of Hatra and Nimrud.
