Mosul's two surviving zoo animals have been rescued from ISIS

Mosul zoo animals.
(Image credit: SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images)

U.S.-supported Iraqi forces continue to retake territory from the Islamic State in Mosul, the last major Iraqi city under ISIS control. Among the survivors in newly rescued neighborhoods are one lion and one bear, the sole animal survivors of the Mosul zoo.

Simba the lion and Lula the bear are now receiving treatment from a "roving war zone veterinarian" named Dr. Amir Khalil, who is working with an animal charity called Four Paws. The zoo's other creatures all escaped or died during the two-year ISIS occupation. Some were killed by bombs; others ate each other; and some animals simply flew the coop.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.