- .Iraq's government has indicated a willingness for the US military to conduct airstrikes against radical Islamist militants
- .Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant a have taken over Iraq's second biggest city Mosul and town of Tikrit
- .Government forces have stalled the militants' advance near Samarra, a city just 110km (68 miles) north of Baghdad
- .ISIS's goal is to create a Islamic caliphate (state) - it already controls territory in eastern Syria and western/central Iraq
- .Iraq's parliament were to hold an emergency session today but it was postponed due to a opposition boycott
- .Kurdish forces are in full control of Iraq's oil city of Kirkuk after the federal army abandoned their posts
- .Iran has sent special forces and a unit of elite troops to Iraq to assist the Iraqi government halt the advance
- .Turkey is negotiating for the release of 80 nationals held by Islamist militants in Mosul
By JILL REILLY
It’s taken a week, but the long-awaited fight back has finally come.
Thousands of Iraqis young and old have answered the beleaguered Shia-led government’s call to arms and signed up to protect the capital, and country, from ISIS militants.
As jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant march on Baghdad after capturing swathes of northern Iraq male supporters of the government turned out in droves today to enlist and fight back.
The militants have already seized control of Iraq's second largest city Mosul and oil-rich Tikrit in less than 48 hours, but so far government forces have stalled the militants' remarkably rapid advance near Samarra, a city just 110km (68 miles) north of Baghdad.
Nevertheless ISIS is pushing ahead with its aim to overthrow the western-backed government as part of its goal to create an Islamic emirate spanning both sides of the Iraq-Syria border.
The fight to save Iraq's capital from the advancing Al Qaeda-inspired militants is underway today after the government pleaded with Iraqis to sign up and help battle insurgents
Thousands of men of all ages turned up today at an army recruiting center in the city to volunteer for military service in a bid to stop the Baghdad falling to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Volunteers who have joined the Iraqi army to fight against the predominantly Sunni militants, travel in an army truck, in Baghdad
An Iraqi soldier flashes a V for victory sign (left) while Iraqi men gather outside of the main army recruiting center to volunteer for military service (right)
Al-Qaeda-inspired militants issued an ultra-violent call to arms today as they continue their unrelenting drive towards the capital Baghdad.
'Continue your march as the battle is not yet raging,' a voice said to be that of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani says on the message posted this morning on the group's media website.
'It will rage in Baghdad and Karbala. So be ready for it. Put on your belts and get ready,' he added.
As George Bush senior celebrates his 90th birthday today, and the US marks nearly 3.5 years since it withdrew troops from a war instigated by his son George W. Bush, it is today considering a request from Iraq to assist with airstrikes.
The White House signaled that it was looking to strengthen Iraqi forces to help them deal with an insurgency while an Obama administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Iraq had previously made clear its interest in drone strikes or bombing by manned U.S. aircraft to help it beat back the militant onslaught.
Former British PM Tony Blair, who with George W Bush oversaw the 2001 invasion of Iraq and who now operates as Middle East Peace Envoy, has yet to comment on the deterioration of the country as it teeters on collapse.
A man is executed in a propaganda video released this morning by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant as the Al Qaeda-inspired militants continue their march towards Baghdad
The man is led to his death. ISIS spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani today promised that the battle would 'rage' on Baghdad and Karbala, a city southwest of the capital. So far government forces have stalled the militants' remarkably rapid advance near Samarra, a city just 110km (68 miles) north of Baghdad
So far government forces have stalled the militants' advance near Samarra, a city just 110km (68 miles) north of Baghdad
FINALLY THE KURDS GET THEIR JERUSALEM: HOW ISIS INVASION IS REDRAWING THE MAP OF IRAQ
Iraqi Kurds seized control of the northern oil city of Kirkuk today as the central government's army abandoned its posts in a rapid collapse that has lost it control of the north.
Peshmerga fighters, the security forces of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish north, swept into Kirkuk after the army abandoned its posts there, a peshmerga spokesman said.
'The whole of Kirkuk has fallen into the hands of peshmerga,' said Jabbar Yawar.
'No Iraqi army remains in Kirkuk now.'
Kurds have long dreamed of taking Kirkuk, a city with huge oil reserves just outside their autonomous region, which they regard as their historical capital.
The swift move by their highly organized security forces demonstrates how this week's sudden advance by fighters of the Al Qaeda offshoot Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has redrawn Iraq's map.
Kurds have been determined to return to Kirkuk after they were driven from the oil-rich city under Saddam Hussein's programme of 'Arabisation.'
He replaced them with settlers from the south, and the Iraqi government has control over the nearby oil fields.
In May 2013, Kurdish fighters took up positions on the outskirts of Kirkuk after Iraqi security forces were redeployed to deal with Sunni militants elsewhere.
Today they made the final push after the army fled before an Islamist offensive nearby.
On the eve of war he famously told the British people: 'Our commitment to the post-Saddam humanitarian effort will be total.
'We shall help Iraq move towards democracy and put the money from Iraqi oil in a UN trust fund so it benefits Iraq and no-one else.'
Iran has sent special forces and a unit of elite troops to Iraq to bolster efforts to halt the advance.
Tehran’s equivalent of the SAS were deployed - the fall of Mosul means the militants are now less than 400km (248 miles) from the borders of Iran.
Kurdish forces are in full control of Iraq's oil-rich city of Kirkuk after the federal army abandoned its bases there, a Kurdish military spokesman said today.
Today Iraqi Kurds seized control of the northern oil city of Kirkuk. Peshmerga fighters, the security forces of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish north, swept into Kirkuk after the army abandoned its posts there, a peshmerga spokesman said.
'The whole of Kirkuk has fallen into the hands of peshmerga,' said Jabbar Yawar. 'No Iraqi army remains in Kirkuk now.'
Kurds have long dreamed of taking Kirkuk, a city with huge oil reserves just outside their autonomous region, which they regard as their historical capital.
The swift move by their highly organised security forces demonstrates how this week's sudden advance by ISIS fighters has redrawn Iraq's map.
Today Iraq's parliament failed to reach a quorum for a vote on declaring a nationwide state of emergency as Sunni insurgents advanced on Baghdad.
Most of those boycotting parliament were from Iraq's Sunni and Kurdish factions, who oppose giving extraordinary powers to Shi'ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Turkey is negotiating for the release of 80 nationals held by ISIS in Mosul and cannot confirm reports that some of them have been freed, government officials said today.
The pro-government Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak reported that the hostages, who include diplomatic staff, children and special forces soldiers, had been released to the Iraqi governor of Mosul and would be brought to Turkey tonight.
Yesterday the militants seized control of much of Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, sending an estimated half a million people fleeing from their homes.
As in Tikrit, the Sunni militants were able to move in after police and military forces melted away after relatively brief clashes.
The capture of Mosul - along with the fall of Tikrit and the militants' earlier seizure of the city of Fallujah and parts of Ramadi, the capital of western Anbar province - have undone hard-fought gains against insurgents in the years following the 2003 invasion by U.S.-led forces.
An Obama administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Iraq had previously made clear its interest in drone strikes or bombing by manned U.S. aircraft to help it beat back the militant onslaught.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that ISIS poses a 'different kind of threat' to American interests than core al-Qaeda, which had repeatedly and publicly vowed to attack U.S. soil.
Still, he said the U.S. was watching the threat from ISIS 'very carefully' because the group has proven itself to be violent and willing to consider attacking U.S. interests and American allies.
Sunni rebels from an al-Qaeda splinter group overran the Iraqi city of Tikrit on Wednesday and closed in on the biggest oil refinery in the country, making further gains in their rapid military advance against the Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad.
There were no reliable estimates of casualties or the number of insurgents involved, though several hundred gunmen were in Tikrit and more were fighting on the outskirts, said Mizhar Fleih, the deputy head of the municipal council of nearby Samarra.
An even larger number of militants likely would have been needed to secure Mosul, a much bigger city.
A member of the Iraqi security forces lies dead beside a vehicle in Tikrit, which was overran by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Wednesday
Militants on Al-Sharqat base north of Tikrit, Iraq. Yesterday ISIS took over Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit
Smoke billows from the site of a car bomb explosion in Khadiyah, northern Baghdad. So far government forces have stalled the militants' remarkably rapid advance near Samarra, a city just 110km (68 miles) north of Baghdad
Kurdish Iraqi Peshmerga forces deploy their troops and armoured vehicles on the outskirts of the multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk, only 1 kilometre away from areas controlled by Sunni Muslim Jihadists
Kurds have been determined to return to Kirkuk after they were driven from the oil-rich city under Saddam Hussein's programme of 'Arabisation'
The militants gained entry to the Turkish consulate in Mosul and held captive 48 people, including diplomats, police, consulate employees and three children, according the office of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the abductions and the seizure of Iraqi territory by the militants, urging 'the international community to unite in showing solidarity with Iraq as it confronts this serious security challenge.'
'Terrorism must not be allowed to succeed in undoing the path towards democracy in Iraq,' Ban said.
While the militants have advanced southward, Baghdad did not appear to be in imminent danger from a similar assault, although Sunni insurgents have stepped up car bombings and suicide attacks in the capital in recent months.
So far, ISIS fighters have stuck to the Sunni heartland and former Sunni insurgent strongholds where people are already alienated by the Shiite-led government over allegations of discrimination and mistreatment.
The militants also would likely meet far stronger resistance, not only from government forces but by Shiite militias if they tried to advance on the capital.
Mosul, the capital of Ninevah province, and the neighboring Sunni-dominated province of Anbar share a long and porous border with Syria, where the Islamic State is also active.
Mosul's fall was a heavy defeat for al-Maliki.
His Shiite-dominated political bloc came first in April 30 parliamentary elections - the first since the U.S. military withdrawal in 2011 - but failed to gain a majority, forcing him to try to build a governing coalition.
Without assigning direct blame, al-Maliki said a 'conspiracy' led to the massive security failure that allowed militants to capture Mosul, and warned that members of the security forces who fled rather than stand up to the militants should be punished.
'We are working to solve the situation,' al-Maliki said. 'We are regrouping the armed forces that are in charge of clearing Ninevah from those terrorists.'
Al-Maliki has pressed parliament to declare a state of emergency over the Mosul attack - a decision that could come as early as Thursday.
Iranian airlines cancelled all flights between Tehran and Baghdad due to security concerns, and the Islamic Republic has intensified security measures along its borders, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported.
An abandoned Iraqi security forces vehicle is pictured on a road in Tikrit. There were no reliable estimates of casualties or the number of insurgents involved, though several hundred gunmen were in Tikrit and more were fighting on the outskirts, said Mizhar Fleih, the deputy head of the municipal council of nearby Samarra
Kurdish peshmerga forces take control of Toz Khormato after ISIS take control of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, and attacked the city of Kirkuk
The remains of a burnt out Iraqi army vehicles are seen at the Kukjali Iraqi Army checkpoint, some 10km of east of the northern city of Mosul
Burnt vehicles belonging to Iraqi security forces are pictured at a checkpoint in east Mosul, two days after radical Sunni Muslim insurgents seized control of the city
Shiite powerhouse Iran has strong ties with Iraq's government.
Some 17,000 Iranian pilgrims are in Iraq at any given time, the agency quoted Saeed Ohadi, the director of Iran's Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization, as saying.
Tikrit residents said the militant group overran several police stations in the Sunni-dominated city.
Two Iraqi security officials confirmed that the city, 130 kilometres (80 miles) north of Baghdad and the capital of Salahuddin province, was under ISIS's control and that the provincial governor was missing.
The major oil refinery in Beiji, located between Mosul and Tikrit, remained in government control, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to talk to reporters.
There were clashes and gunmen tried to take the town but were repelled in a rare success for Iraqi government forces protecting an important facility, the officials said.
The International Organisation for Migration estimated that 500,000 people fled the Mosul area, with some seeking safety in the Ninevah countryside or the nearby semiautonomous Kurdish region.
Getting into the latter has grown trickier, however, with migrants without family members already in the enclave needing to secure permission from Kurdish authorities, according to the IOM.
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Mosul's fall must bring the country's leaders together to deal with the 'serious, mortal threat' facing Iraq.
'We can push back on the terrorists ... and there would be a closer cooperation between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government to work together and try to flush out these foreign fighters,' he said on the sidelines of a diplomatic meeting in Athens.
Construction works to set up camps for the people fleeing Mosul after the city was seized by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
The International Organization for Migration estimated that 500,000 people fled the Mosul area, with some seeking safety in the Ninevah countryside or the nearby semiautonomous Kurdish region
Iraqis who fled the violence in Mosul stand in a queue at a checkpoint in Erbil, Kurdistan region
Iraqi refugees from Mosul arrive at Khazir refugee camp outside Irbil, 217 miles (350 kilometres) north of Baghdad
Thousands of people who fled Iraq's second city of Mosul after it was overrun by jihadists wait in the blistering heat, hoping to enter the safety of the nearby Kurdish region and furious at Baghdad's failure to help them
Iraqi children fleeing violence in the northern Nineveh province sleep in a tent at a temporary camp
An Iraqi Kurdish security guard waits to check the ID cards of Iraqi families fleeing violence in the northern Nineveh province as they gather at a Kurdish checkpoint in Aski Kalak, 40km west of Arbil
Mosul residents said gunmen went around knocking on doors there Wednesday, reassuring people they would not be harmed.
The situation appeared calm but tense, they said.
Violence raged elsewhere in Iraq on Wednesday.
Police and hospital officials said a suicide bomber struck inside a tent where tribesmen were meeting to solve a dispute in Baghdad's Shiite Sadr City neighborhood, killing 31 and wounding 46.
Car bombs in Shiite areas elsewhere claimed another 17 and maimed dozens, officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Car bombs and suicide attackers are favorite tools of the ISIS.
Mourners carry the coffin of a victim killed by a suicide bomber who blew himself up inside a tent filled with mourners in Baghdad, during a funeral in Najaf, south of Baghdad
The suicide bomber blew himself up inside a tent filled with mourners in a predominantly Sunni district of Baghdad, killing at least 16 people, police and medical sources have said
ABU DUA: IMPRISONED BY THE US, THE MAN WHO HATES THE WEST MORE THAN OSAMA BIN LADEN AND IS THE DRIVING FORCE BY ISIS
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, (seen here when he was a prisoner and more recently) is the shadowy head of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the shadowy leader of thousands of Islamist fighters in Syria and Iraq, many of them Westerners, appears to be surpassing Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri as the world’s most influential jihadist.
'For the last 10 years or more, [Zawahri] has been holed up in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area and hasn’t really done very much more than issue a few statements and videos,' said Richard Barrett, a former counterterrorism chief at MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence service.
'Whereas Baghdadi has done an amazing amount – he has captured cities, he has mobilized huge amounts of people, he is killing ruthlessly throughout Iraq and Syria.
'If you were a guy who wanted action, you would go with Baghdadi,' said Barrett. noting the ISIS leader’s challenge to Zawahri was 'a really interesting development.'
'Where that goes will determine a lot about how terrorism is [carried out],' Barrett said.
The ISIS leader, who was born in 1971 in Baghdad, is touted as a battlefield commander and tactician, a crucial distinction compared with Zawahri.
Baghdadi, who has a degrees in Islamic studies, apparently joined the insurgency that erupted in Iraq soon after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
He was taken as a prisoner of the Americans in Camp Bucca between 2005 and 2007 - it was here that one of the only two photos know to be in existence was taken of him.
He is known as 'The Ghost' to members of the pro-Assad Lebanese Shi-ite militia Hizballah.
Baghdadi taken as a prisoner of the Americans in Camp Bucca between 2005 and 2007 (file photo)
'Only a few people know the face of Baghdadi,' Sheik Ahmad, the Hizballah official in charge of investigating ISIS in Syria, told TIME last year.
The secretive Baghdadi talks with a scarf covering his face even when dealing with close allies, according to militants who worked with him in Iraq.
He addresses his ISIS followers through audio recordings posted to the internet, rather than in public places.
In October 2005, American forces said they believed they had killed him in a strike on the Iraq- Syria border.
But that appears to have been incorrect, as he took the reins of what was then known as the Islamic State of Iraq in May 2010 after two of its chiefs were killed in a U.S.-Iraqi raid. Since then, details about him have slowly trickled out.
In October 2011, the U.S. Treasury designated him as a 'terrorist' in a notice that said he was born in the Iraqi city of Samarra in 1971.
And earlier this year, Iraq released a picture they said was of Baghdadi, the first from an official source, depicting a balding, bearded man in a suit and tie.
Lt. Gen. Abdel-Amir al-Zaidi, who heads a northern security command centre, says his forces believe Baghdadi is hiding in Iraq’s Diyala province, but other officials contest this.
He is a renegade within al-Qaeda and it was his maverick streak that eventually led its central command to sever ties, deepening a rivalry between his organization and the global terror network
Zawahri has urged ISIS to focus on Iraq and leave Syria to Nusra, but Baghdadi and his fighters have openly defied the Al-Qaeda chief and, indeed, have fought not only Assad, but also Nusra and other rebel groups.
He is 'more violent, more virulent, more anti-American [than Osama Bin Laden]' a senior U.S. intelligence official told the Washington Post.
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