"Blowing up the Al Hadba minaret and the Al Nuri mosque amounts to an official acknowledgement of defeat", the Iraqi prime minister Haider Al Abadi said in a brief comment on his website.
The Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Iraq have destroyed the 12th-century Great Mosque of Al-Nuri and the leaning minaret, which has dominated Mosul's skyline for centuries and is pictured on Iraq's 10,000 dinar bank note.
ISIS, through its news agency, said U.S. warplanes were responsible for the loss late Wednesday of the Great Mosque of al-Nuri and its leaning minaret.USA officials told that the ISIS claim was "1,000% false", the CNN reported.
A video seen on social media showed the minaret collapsing vertically in a belch of sand and dust, as a woman lamented in the background, "The minaret, the minaret, the minaret".
It was on July 4 2014 that Baghdadi delivered a Friday sermon from the pulpit at the Great Mosque.
Earlier this month Mosul residents reported IS fighters began sealing off the area around the mosque.
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When he finally returned home last week, he was suffering from severe brain damage and was in a persistent vegetative state.
"Across Iraq, children continue to witness sheer horror and unimaginable violence", the United Nations Children Fund (Unicef) said in a statement.
Earlier on Wednesday, the commander of Iraqi forces told the BBC they were 15m from the mosque, as they pushed ahead with their offensive to retake Mosul. The mosque was built in 1172-73, shortly before his death, and housed an Islamic school.
Al-Hadba minaret, a treasured landmark in Mosul, was nicknamed the hunchback by Iraqis because of its precarious tilt.
The United States and Iraq are blaming ISIS for the destruction of an iconic mosque that stood over the embattled Iraqi city of Mosul for eight centuries.
Nabeel Nouriddin, a historian and archaeologist specializing in Mosul and its Nineveh region, said the minaret had not been renovated since 1970, making it particularly vulnerable to blasts even if it was not directly hit.
The IS blew up the mosque during the celebrations of Laylat al Qadr, the holiest night of the year for Muslims.
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