RUBBLE OF "THE HUNCHBACK"
The Iraqi government once hoped to take Mosul by the end of 2016, but the bloody campaign has dragged on as the militants reinforced positions in civilian areas, launched suicide car and motorbike bombs, laid booby traps and kept up barrages of sniper and mortar fire.
The area still under Daesh control is about 2 square kilometers (0.77 square miles), alongside the western bank of the Tigris river which bisects Mosul.
The fall of Mosul would mark the end of the Iraqi half of the militants' "caliphate" as a state structure, but Daesh would remain in control of large areas of both Iraq and Syria.
Daesh posted a video online showing the remaining square base of the mosque's leaning minaret amid a mountain of rubble, with wrecked cars nearby.
The destruction caused anger and grief for Mosul's people, who affectionately call the tower al-Hadba, or "the hunchback".
Daesh's black flag had been flying on the 150-foot (45-metre) minaret since June 2014. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the militants' decision to blow it up was an admission of defeat.
Baghdadi has left the fighting in Mosul to local commanders and has been assumed to be hiding in the Iraqi-Syrian border area. There has been no confirmation of Russian reports over the past week that he has been killed.
In Syria, the insurgents' "capital", Raqqa, is nearly encircled by a U.S.-backed Kurdish-led coalition.
