article_snippet: Speaking to German news programme Deutsche Welle,
article_snippet: Until 2003, Mosul museum had the second biggest collection of ancient relics in Iraq, including thousands of items from Nineveh and other ancient centers of Northern Mesopotamia.
article_snippet: Amid the Western military operation  against Saddam Hussein that year, looters ransacked the building.
article_snippet: Employees managed to save the majority of the items, and then moved most to Baghdad.
article_snippet: Mosul, the biggest city in the Islamic State group's self-declared caliphate, boasts a relatively educated, diverse population that seeks to preserve the Islamic State group's self-declared caliphate heritage sites and libraries.
article_snippet: In the chaos that followed the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein, residents near the Central Library hid some of the Central Library centuries-old manuscripts in residents near the Central Library own homes to prevent residents near the Central Library theft or destruction by looters.
article_snippet: A University of Mosul history professor, who spoke on condition A University of Mosul history professor, who spoke on condition not be named because of A University of Mosul history professor, who spoke on condition fear of the Islamic State group, said the extremists started wrecking the collections of other public libraries in December.
article_snippet: A University of Mosul history professor, who spoke on condition reported particularly heavy damage to the archives of a Sunni Muslim library, the library of the 265-year-old Latin Church and Monastery of the Dominican Fathers and the Mosul Museum Library with works dating back to 5000 BC.