Iraqis lovingly call the minaret Al-Hadba, or "the hunchback".
The black flag of ISIS had been fluttering over the leaning minaret since June 2014.Now the site has largely been reduced to rubble.
Grand al-Nuri mosque is where ISIL's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made a rare appearance in June 2014 and gave a speech while standing at a pulpit to proclaim the creation of a "caliphate".
Staff Lieutenant General Abdulamir Yarallah, the Iraqi commander leading the anti-ISIS offensive in Mosul, said the Hadba minaret, constructed in 1172 AD, was also destroyed.
IS blamed a USA strike for the mosque's destruction.
The Great Mosque, located in the Old City in western Mosul, plays an important role for Daesh. Aerial photos show that the mosque and minaret has been largely destroyed.
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As ISIS is being squeezed into even smaller territory - a handful of neighborhoods and Mosul's old city, around 100,000 minors remain trapped in an "extremely dangerous" area of Mosul and are being used as human shields and forced to fight on behalf of the latter.
"The responsibility of this devastation is laid firmly at the doorstep of ISIS", U.S. Army Maj. FILE - In this February 4, 2003 file photo, an electrician works on the roof of a shop in the Northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
Iraq and Saudi Arabia agreed to set up a coordination council to upgrade strategic ties, a joint statement said on Tuesday at the end his talks with Saudi King Salman a day earlier. US General Joseph Martin said, this is a crime against the people of Mosul and all of Iraq, and is an example of why this brutal organization must be annihilated. Iraqi officials have privately expressed the hope that the mosque could be captured in time for Eid al-Fitr, the festival marking the end of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month. Just days later, the city was overrun by the Islamic State.
The al-Nuri Mosque, built hundreds of years ago, has special significance to the group as it is where they first declared a "caliphate".
But Hassan said it was puzzling that the group would destroy the mosque itself now, rather than hunkering down to fight inside it and forcing the Iraqis or the USA -led coalition to destroy it. Since March the Iraqi security forces, including their elite counter-terror soldiers and Emergency Response Division have been within 600 meters of the mosque, but were unable to push forward into the historic neighborhood around it.
Earlier this month Mosul residents reported fighters began sealing off the area around the mosque. Residents said that IS fighters ordered families living in the area to evacuate in preparation for a final stand.
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