Take a tour through Saddam Hussein’s trashed Mosul palace after it was bombed and retaken from ISIS thugs

ONCE it was an evil dictator's lair, then the US Army came and went before invading ISIS moved in.

Now it's a pulverised monument to the destruction of war.

The elite Iraqi Counterterrorism forces (ICTS) liberated the sprawling ex-Presidential Palace on Thursday after fierce fighting to expel ISIS.

Deranged Daesh won the keys to the palace after capturing Mosul in 2014.

But before that it was briefly occupied by the US Army.

They moved in after the 2003 invasion.

And they were excellent tenants.

For when they left it was largely how they found it.

But by the time Iraqi soldiers moved in last week they found the palace bore no resemblance to its former blingtastic self.

Gone are the halls of columned marble, luxury furnishings and fittings.

The extravagant chandeliers hanging from ceilings were long ago smashed to smithereens.

For months of air raids and shelling has stripped the compound down to bare bone concrete and stone.

The only decorations now are wall paints and scrawls of the so called Islamic State.

The huge compound next to the Tigris River served as the death cult’s accommodation and meeting place.

Outbuildings were used for command and control, training, internal security and repression, according to the UK MoD.

That’s why RAF Tornados came by in August with 2,000lbs “Bunker Buster” bombs.

The warplanes flying from their base in Akrotiri, Cyprus, used the special laser-guided Enhanced Paveway III bombs - a whopping 4.39m long - to hit the HQ.

The results are clear for all to see.

The jets usually carry Paveway IV and Brimstone warheads in their aerial arsenal for backing ground troops.

But in the mission it used Bunker Buster bombs to smash the jihadi maniacs in their reinforced concrete hiding place.

RAF warplanes have killed or wounded more than 2,000 ISIS fighters in air attacks over Iraq during the last year.

A total of 1,864 ISIS jihadis were killed while another 182 were recorded as having been wounded in Operation Shader airstrikes on the death cult’s strongholds.

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