By Ajnadin Mustafa.
Tripoli, 12 December 2014:
An armed gang attacked and sacked yet another Tripoli mosque yesterday, leaving the building partly burnt . . .[restrict]out and strewn with rubble.
It has not been possible to confirm the extent of the damage to the elegant El-Manara El-Jafaaria mosque in Swani. It appears that, as with previous raids, the focus was on shrines and holy books. The mosque courtyard was littered with debris.
The vandalising outright destruction of mosques and shrines in the capital started two years ago, when extremists launched a campaign to `’purify” religious sites and even graveyards by removing what they believed was forbidden adornment.
The campaign began two years ago with the ransacking of several historic mosques and the obliteration by bulldozer of the beautiful Sidi Sha’ab Mosque facing the Radisson Blu Mahary Hotel.
This year armed gangs have trashed Tripoli’s Karamanli, Darghouth and Shaib Al-Ain mosques and attacked the Othman Pasha Madrassa. [/restrict]
