Even as thousands of Iraqi troops and militia began a massive offensive to retake Daesh strongholds in Iraq yesterday, the group’s video last week – showcasing the wanton destruction of ancient statues in Mosul – attracted widespread outrage and condemnation globally.

The video, which surfaced late last week, left historians and archaeologists spending much of their time studying the footage for clues as to what had been lost. The destruction took place in Mosul, the Iraqi city that has been under the control of Daesh since June when its fighters advanced rapidly across the country’s north.

Observing that the birthplace of human civilisation was being destroyed, the Guardian noted in an editorial that the destruction of statues and artefacts that date back from the Assyrian and Akkadian empires have drawn ire not only from the international community, but has also been condemned by Muslims, activists and minorities attacked by Daesh. “Murder of people and destruction is not enough, so even civilisation and the culture of people is being destroyed,” it said. The newspaper referred in the editorial to experts, according to whom the items destroyed include original pieces, reconstructed fragments and copies. They include many pieces from the Assyrian and Parthian eras dating back several centuries before Christ.

The clips from the Daesh video show militants taking sledgehammers and drills to smash ancient Mesopotamian statues, toppling them from plinths, smashing them with a sledgehammer and breaking up a carving of a winged bull, that dated to the 7th century BC, with a drill. The group claimed that the destruction was part of their wider campaign to eliminate anything that they view as heretical.

The New York Observer, in an editorial, urged the global community to act urgently. “Such wanton brutality must stop, before all vestiges of the ancient world are obliterated,” it said, while reminding readers of the 2001 destruction of the Buddhas in Afghanistan by the Taliban, despite interventions by the United Nations, the government of Pakistan, and the Metropolitan Museum, to save them.

Terming the smashing of the historic works of art as “inflammatory incitement,” the New York Times also focused on the financial aspect of Daesh’s operations. It said that reports of alleged efforts to smuggle some of these priceless artefacts by Daesh must be tracked down and prevented immediately, if necessary with international help. The newspaper also said in an editorial that the situation demanded “a serious call to the Security Council and the United Nations” as well as the nations united against Daesh to redouble their efforts to fight against such violence and hatred.

Commenting on the destruction, the Los Angeles Times said that the world was “witnessing a completely different era, marked by a jihadist [extremist] movement far more advanced than anything we have seen before”. It also linked the events in Mosul to the wider debate on the Daesh videos – which showcase threats to executions to destruction – and their appeal. “There is a direct relation between the new public psychology and Daesh’s new style of audiovisual production,” it said.

Emphasising the same point, the Observer in London noted that while anger was never a sound basis for national policy, nevertheless the action by countries by Jordan and Egypt to tackle Daesh contrasted sharply with the more constrained British approach. It said that the “level of commitment to ‘degrading and destroying’ Daesh, the objective set out by Barack Obama last September and backed by David Cameron, depends to a degree on changing assessments of the threat posed by the group.” However, it also admitted that “Daesh has suffered reverses in recent months after initially seizing large swaths of northern Iraq and Syria… Its long siege of Kobani, on the Syria-Turkey border, was broken by Kurdish fighters.”