How can the National Trust claim that reconstructing Clandon is impossible as Mosul's landmarks rise again?

The BBC reports, Mosul's landmarks rise again after IS destruction’. In other parts of the world there is the will to repair and reconstruct damaged and destroyed historic buildings. The National Trust’s approach to Clandon Park is outdated and will deprive the nation of a special place, even as people in other countries show their affection for their built heritage.

The a-Hadba minaret, destroyed in 2017, has now been rebuilt.

Historic buildings in Mosul, including churches and mosques, are being reopened following years of devastation resulting from the Iraqi city's takeover by the extremist Islamic State (IS) group.

The project, organised and funded by Unesco, began a year after IS was defeated and driven out of the city, in northern Iraq, in 2017.

Unesco's director-general Audrey Azoulay attended a ceremony on Wednesday to mark the reopening.

Local artisans, residents and representatives of all of Mosul's religious communities were also there.

In 2014, IS occupied Mosul, which for centuries was seen as a symbol of tolerance and co-existence between different religious and ethnic communities in Iraq.

The group imposed its extreme ideology on the city, targeting minorities and killing opponents.

Three years later, a US-backed coalition in alliance with the Iraqi army and state-linked militias mounted an intense ground and air offensive to wrest the city back from IS control. The bloodiest battles focused on the Old City, where the group's fighters made a last stand.

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The huge task of rebuilding began under the auspices of Unesco with a budget of $115m (£93m) that the agency had managed to drum up, much of it from the United Arab Emirates and the European Union.

Father Olivier Poquillon - a Dominican priest - returned to Mosul to help oversee the restoration of one of the key buildings, the convent of Notre-Dame de l'Heure, known locally as al-Saa'a, which was founded nearly 200 years ago.

"We started by trying first to gather the team - a team composed of people from Old Mosul from different denominations - Christians, Muslims working all together," he says.

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In charge of the entire project - which included the restoration of 124 old houses and two especially fine mansions - has been the chief architect Maria Rita Acetoso, who came to Mosul straight from restoration work for Unesco in Afghanistan.

"This project demonstrates that culture too can create jobs, can encourage skills development and in addition can make those involved feel part of something meaningful," she says.

She hopes the reconstruction can restore hope and enable the recovery of people's cultural identity and memory.