ISIS burns hundreds of 'blasphemous' Christian books in Mosul in new video

Lorraine Caballero Tuesday, March 15, 2016

An Islamic State flag hangs amid electric wires over a street in Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, near the port-city of Sidon, southern Lebanon January 19, 2016. | REUTERS / Ali Hashisho

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has released a new video purportedly showing its religious police burning hundreds of Christian books in Mosul in a bid to wipe out Christianity.

The new ISIS video titled "Diwan of education destroys Christian instruction books in Mosul" was posted by the terror group's news agency Amaq. The purported burning of the Christian books marks the latest effort of the jihadists to purge their stronghold of anything that goes against their own interpretation of Islam, according to the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA).

In the video, a militant is seen tossing manuscripts and other Christian reading materials onto a burning pile of books. The terror group sees the Chistian books as disobedience towards Allah, ARA News explains, and so believe they must be destroyed.

"ISIS jihadis burned hundreds of Christian textbooks in central Mosul, having collected them earlier last week from the schools and churches of the city," local media activist Abdullah al-Mulla told ARA News. "The militants have also collected a lot of Christian textbooks from the Dawassa district near the Martyrs' Park and publically burned them."

This is not the first time that ISIS has destroyed Christian instruction books that they consider blasphemous towards Allah. In February 2015, the militant group blew up Mosul's main library along with 10,000 books and 700 rare manuscripts including 20^{th century Iraqi newspapers and Ottoman Empire books.}

Aside from that, ISIS has already destroyed the Palmyra in Syria and other religious relics and Islamic sites that they deem as pagan or idolatrous.

A history professor from the University of Mosul spoke on the condition of anonymity and said ISIS began destroying public libraries and other book collections starting December 2014. The professor said a Sunni Muslim library archive, a 265-year-old Latin Church library, and the Mosul Museum Library were wrecked by the extremists.

Residents living near the Central Library had hidden some of the ancient manuscripts to prevent looters from stealing or destroying them, the report adds.