Authorities in Mosul have begun demolishing a onetime icon of modern Iraqi architecture used by the Islamic State group to throw men accused of being gay to their deaths. Labourers and bulldozers on Monday could be seen removing rubble and twisted metal from the gutted ruins of the National Insurance Company in the city's west.

It was designed by celebrated Iraqi architect Rifat Chadirji in the 1960s but became infamous under IS, which used the seven-storey structure to kill young men it said had violated Islamic law by being gay. The building was then ravaged by the months-long fight to oust IS from Mosul, which ended in the summer of 2017.

"It's prone to collapse because of the rockets, shelling, and explosions that hit it and destroyed large parts of it," Mohammad Jassem, a municipal official representing Mosul's nearby Old City, told AFP. "A committee was formed to study the building and assessed it was no longer viable, and that any restoration at this stage would be futile."

He said discussions were ongoing to demolish other buildings damaged in the fighting, including Mosul's branch of the central bank and the Nineveh governorate. The NIC building had been regarded as a prime example of modern Iraqi design. It featured rows of slim archways and projected windows reminiscent of Iraq's famous "shanasheel". Read more via AFP