Iraq conflict: Sunni militants capture northern town

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Sunni militants captured the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar early on Monday, its mayor and residents said, the latest blow to the Shia-led government a week after it lost a vast swath of territory in the country's north.

The town, with a population of some 200,000 people, mostly ethnic Shia and Sunni Turkomen, was taken just before dawn, Mayor Abdulal Abdoul told The Associated Press.

The ethnic mix of Tal Afar, 420 kilometres northwest of Baghdad, raises the grim spectre of large-scale atrocities by Sunni militants of the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, who already claim to have killed hundreds of Shias in areas they captured last week.

A Tal Afar resident reached by phone confirmed the town's fall and said militants in pickup trucks mounted with machine guns and flying black jihadi banners were roaming the streets as gunfire rang out.

'Gripped by fear'
The local security force left the town before dawn, said Hadeer al-Abadi, who spoke to the AP as he prepared to head out of town with his family. Local tribesmen who continued to fight later surrendered to the militants, he said.

"Residents are gripped by fear and most of them have already left the town to areas held by Kurdish security forces," said al-Abadi.

Security concerns forced Canada's acting charge d'affaires to leave Iraq over the weekend.

Security at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was strengthened and some staff members were sent elsewhere in Iraq and to neighbouring Jordan, the U.S. State Department said Sunday. A military official said about 150 Marines have been sent to Baghdad to help with embassy security.

A U.S. travel warning said the Baghdad International Airport was "struck by mortar rounds and rockets" and that the international airport in Mosul, the country's second-largest city, has also been the target of militant assault.

However, a senior Baghdad airport official, Saad al-Khafagi, denied that the facility or surrounding areas have been hit. State-run Iraqiya television also denied the attack, quoting the Ministry of Transport.

A city of seven million, Baghdad is not in immediate danger of falling in the hands of the Sunni militants, but a string of bombings on Sunday killed 19 people and wounded more than 40. The violence added to the nervousness of the Iraqi capital's residents.

Security has been tightened around the city, particularly on its northern and western edges, and food prices have dramatically gone up because of the transportation disruptions on the main road heading north from the capital.

The fall of Tal Afar comes a week after Sunni militants captured Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, and Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit in a lightning offensive. The town is some 150 kilometres from the border with Syria, where ISIS is fighting against President Bashar al-Assad's government and controls territory abutting the Iraqi border.

'We will ... liberate every inch they defaced'
Tal Afar's capture came just hours after Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, addressing volunteers joining the security forces, vowed to retake inch of territory seized by the militants.

"We will march and liberate every inch they defaced, from the country's northernmost point to the southernmost point," al-Maliki said. The volunteers responded with Shia chants.

Fighting in Tal Afar began on Sunday, with Iraqi government officials saying that ISIL fighters were firing rockets seized from military arms depots in the Mosul area. They said the local garrison suffered heavy casualties and the main hospital was unable to cope with the wounded, without providing exact numbers.

Over the weekend, militants posted graphic photos that appeared to show their gunmen massacring scores of captured Iraqi soldiers. The pictures, on a militant website, appear to show masked ISIS fighters loading the captives onto flatbed trucks before forcing them to lie face-down in a shallow ditch with their arms tied behind their backs. The final images show the bodies of the captives soaked in blood after being shot at several locations.

170 captured soldiers shot to death
Iraq's chief military spokesman Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi confirmed the photos' authenticity and said he was aware of cases of mass murder of captured Iraqi soldiers in areas held by ISIS.

He told the AP that an examination of the images by military experts showed that about 170 soldiers were shot to death by the militants after their capture.

Captions on the photos showing the soldiers after they were shot say "hundreds have been liquidated," but the total numbers could not be verified.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the militants' claim of killing the Iraqi troops "is horrifying and a true depiction of the bloodlust that those terrorists represent." She added that an ISIL claim that 1,700 were killed could not be confirmed by the U.S.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday that the reports of Islamic militants massacring Iraqi soldiers was "deeply disturbing" and warned in a statement against sectarian rhetoric that could inflame the conflict and carry grave implications for the entire region.

The grisly images could sap the morale of Iraq's security forces, but they could also heighten sectarian tensions.

Thousands of Shias are already heeding a call from their most revered spiritual leader to take up arms against the Sunni militants who have swept across the north in the worst instability in Iraq since the U.S. withdrawal in 2011.

ISIS has vowed to take the battle to Baghdad and cities farther south housing revered Shia shrines.

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