Islamic State (ISIS) flag
Islamic State (ISIS) flagReuters

Iraqi forces said on Sunday they had recaptured the site of Nimrud, an ancient Assyrian city blown up by the Islamic State (ISIS) group, as they battled the jihadists south of Mosul.

The troops pushed towards Nimrud last week as they pressed an offensive begun on October 17 to recapture Iraq's second city, which the jihadists seized along with swathes of Iraq and Syria in mid-2014.

A Kurdish-Arab alliance is pursuing a twin offensive against the other major city still under ISIS control, Raqa in Syria, and a U.S.-led coalition is backing both assaults with air strikes.

"The villages of Al-Nomaniyah and Al-Nimrud and the ruins of Nimrud were recaptured," Staff Brigadier General Saad Ibrahim of the 9th Armored Division told AFP.

Iraq's Joint Operations Command had announced earlier Sunday that the entire Nimrud area was retaken, but later said that this was incorrect.

However, the village of Nimrud and the archaeological site have been recaptured, the JOC said.

Nimrud was the one of the great centers of the ancient Middle East. Founded in the 13th century BCE, it became the capital of the Assyrian empire, whose rulers built vast palaces and monuments that have drawn archaeologists for more than 150 years.

In April last year, ISIS posted a video on the internet of its fighters smashing monuments before planting explosives around the site and blowing it up.

It was part of a campaign of destruction against heritage sites under jihadist control that also took in Hatra in the desert south of Mosul and Palmyra in neighboring Syria.

That attack sparked widespread consternation and alarm, with archaeologists and heritage experts comparing it to the 2001 demolition of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan by the Taliban.

UNESCO, the UN’s cultural agency, last year condemned the destruction of Nimrud by ISIS, saying it amounted to a "war crime."

ISIS says the ancient monuments are idols that violate the teachings of its extreme form of Sunni Islam, but it has nevertheless sold artefacts to fund its operations.

On Sunday, UNESCO welcomed the news of Nimrud's recapture.

"We look forward to coordinating with the relevant authorities in Baghdad on providing support for any assessments that need to be done of the site, once the area has been stabilized," UNESCO spokesman George Papagiannis said.

Nineveh is mentioned in the Bible as the place to which G-d commands the prophet Jonah to go in order to predict its destruction.

AFP contributed to this report.