The oldest monastery in Iraq has been destroyed by ISIS, it emerged last week. St Elijah’s Monastery in Mosul had stood for 1,400 years and had recently been used as a place of worship by US troops. However, satellite photos obtained by Associated Press show that the monastery has been razed. Fr Paul Thabit Habib, 39, a priest exiled in Erbil, Iraq, said: “I can’t describe my sadness. Our Christian history in Mosul is being barbarically levelled. We see it as an attempt to expel us from Iraq, eliminating and finishing our existence in this land.” After reviewing the satellite images, imagery expert Stephen Wood, of Allsource Analysis, told AP that the destruction of the monastery took place between August 27 and September 28, 2014. Before it was destroyed the monastery had 26 rooms including a sanctuary and chapel. “Bulldozers, heavy equipment, sledgehammers, possibly explosives turned those stone walls into this field of gray-white dust. They destroyed it completely,” Mr Wood said. St Elijah’s is one of more than 100 religious and historic sites, including mosques, tombs, shrines and churches, destroyed by ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Fr Dankha Issa, an Iraqi monk belonging to the Antonian Order of St Ormizda of the Chaldeans, told Aid to the Church in Need: “St Elijah’s Monastery was a symbol of the Christian presence in Iraq. The fact that it has been destroyed is terrible.” Fr Dankha, also an exile from Mosul, said: “It had stood abandoned for a long time – but it meant a lot to us Christians. It was an expression of our extremely long history in Iraq.”