Fleeing Iraqi civilians walk past the heavily damaged Al Nouri Mosque in Iraq's Old City of Mosul. File /AP

Five "large-scale explosive devices, designed to trigger a massive destruction of the site," were found in the southern wall of the prayer hall on Tuesday by the Unesco team working at the site, a representative for the agency told AFP late on Friday.

Mosul's Al Nouri Mosque and the adjacent leaning minaret nicknamed Al Hadba or the "hunchback," which dates from the 12th century, were destroyed during the battle to retake the city from Daesh.

Iraq's army accused Daesh, which occupied Mosul for three years, of planting explosives at the site and blowing it up. Unesco, the UN cultural agency, has been working to restore the mosque and other architectural heritage sites in the city, much of it reduced to rubble in the battle to retake it in 2017.

"The Iraqi armed forces immediately secured the area and the situation is now fully under control," Unesco added. One bomb was removed, but four other 1.5-kilogramme devices "remain connected to each other" and are expected to be cleared in the coming days, it said.

'Complex manufacturing'

"These explosive devices were hidden inside a wall, which was specially rebuilt around them: it explains why they could not be discovered when the site was cleared by Iraqi forces" in 2020, the agency said.

Iraqi General Tahseen Al Khafaji, spokesperson for the Joint Operations Command of various Iraqi forces, confirmed the discovery of "several explosive devices from Daesh fighters in Al Nouri Mosque."

He said provincial deminers requested help from the Defence Ministry in Baghdad to defuse the remaining munitions because of their "complex manufacturing."

Construction work has been suspended at the site until the bombs are removed.

The Al Nouri Mosque derives its name from Nureddine Al Zinki, the unifier of Syria who also reigned for a time over Mosul and ordered its construction in 1172. It was destroyed and rebuilt in 1942 in a renovation project, with only the ancient minaret remaining from the original structure.

The minaret — which will be reconstructed at a slant upon the request of locals — is being rebuilt with 45,000 of the original bricks saved from the rubble, only a third of the original structure.

The bomb scare was not the first surprise discovery at Al Nouri. In January 2022, restoration teams unearthed an underground prayer room from the original 12th century building.

Agence France-Presse