Mosul (Ar. al-Mawṣil) is a city on the southern banks of the Tigris River in northern Iraq approximately 362 kilometers (225 miles) north of Baghdad. Under Ottoman rule, Mosul was the capital of the province (Ar. vilayet) of the same name that spanned the southern part of Kurdistan. In ancient times, then known as Nineveh (Ninawa), it was the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which reached its zenith from 668 to 627 B.C.E. Mosul prospered as a …