In the fight to save it, here's how Iraq's Mosul was destroyed

The Battle of Mosul was a major military campaign launched by the Iraqi Government forces with allied militias, the Kurdistan Regional Government, and international forces to retake the city of Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which had seized the city in June 2014. During the military intervention against ISIL, Iraqi and Peshmerga forces had already made unsuccessful attempts to retake the city 2015 and again in 2016, despite limited gains.

The offensive, dubbed Operation "We Are Coming, Nineveh" began on 16 October 2016, with forces besieging ISIL-controlled areas in the Nineveh Governorate surrounding Mosul, and continued with Iraqi troops and Peshmerga fighters engaging ISIL on three fronts outside Mosul, going from village to village in the surrounding area in the largest deployment of Iraqi troops since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The battle was also the world's single largest military operation in nearly 15 years.