DHAKA: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters have used a bulldozer to start destroying a 3,000-year-old Assyrian city near Mosul in Iraq.

The archaeologists and other sources have told Al Jazeera.

The demolition at Nimrud on Thursday comes less than a week after video was released showing ISIL fighters destroying ancient artifact in a Mosul museum.

“They came at midday with a bulldozer and started destroying the palace,” said an Iraqi official in touch with antiquities staff in Mosul.

She said the winged-bull statues known as lamassu at the gates of the palace of Ashurnasirpal II had been smashed. It was not clear what else had been destroyed on the site, about 20km southeast of Mosul.

In last week’s ISIL video, fighters were shown using power drills and sledgehammers to try to destroy similar statues at the ancient site of Nineveh, within Mosul.

The mutli-tonne figures were placed at the palaces’ gates as protective spirits.

BDST: 0632 HRS, MAR 06, 2015