Wednesday 11 June 2014 16.21 Militants have taken control of the Iraqi city of Tikrit and freed some 300 inmates from a prison in the city, according to local police.
Tikrit is now the second provincial capital to fall into the hands of militants in two days after the capture of Mosul yesterday.
"All of Tikrit is in the hands of the militants," a police colonel said of the Salaheddin provincial capital, which lies roughly half way between Baghdad and Iraq's second city Mosul.
A police brigadier general said that the militants attacked from the north, west and south of the city, and that they were from powerful jihadist group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
ISIL is spearheading a spectacular offensive that began late on Monday and has since overrun all of Nineveh province and its capital Mosul as well as parts of Kirkuk to its southeast and Salaheddin to its south.
Iraqi security forces are battling militants at a northern entrance to the city of Samarra, police say, as jihadists push south towards Baghdad in a lightening offensive.
The city is home to a revered Shia shrine which was bombed in 2006, leading to a sectarian conflict between Shia and Sunni forces that left thousands dead.
Samarra lies just 110km north of Baghdad, on the main highway to Mosul.
Some 500,000 Iraqis have fled their homes in Mosul after jihadist militants took control, fearing increased violence.
The International Organisation for Migration said its sources on the ground estimated the violence leading up to ISIL's takeover of Mosul "displaced over 500,000 people in and around the city".
The violence in Mosul "has resulted in a high number of casualties among civilians," IOM said, adding that "the main health campus, a group of four hospitals, is inaccessible, as it is in the middle of an area in which there is fighting."
"Some mosques have been converted to clinics to treat casualties," it said.
Vehicles have been banned from the city centre, and people are being forced to flee on foot in the face of indiscriminate shelling.
Neighbourhoods in the west of the city have been hit by a lack of drinking water after the main water station in the area was destroyed by bombing, and many families are facing food shortages, the IOM said.
IOM said it and other international organisations had received appeals from local Iraqi authorities for help dealing with the situation.
Insurgents have also seized the Turkish consulate in Mosul and kidnapped the head of the diplomatic mission and 47 other people, a Turkish government official said.
"48 Turks including the consul, staff members, special operations teams and three children were abducted," the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The seizure of the consulate means at least 76 Turks are now being held by militants in Mosul after 28 Turkish truck drivers were abducted by ISIL militants while they were delivering diesel to a power plant in the city.
Turkey has close trade and political links with the Kurdish-controlled area to the north of Mosul that has not, for the moment at least, been targeted by ISIL. It sees a particular role in protecting the interests of the Turkish ethnic minority in that area.
Jihadists are firmly in control of Mosul, patrolling the streets and calling for employees to return to work a day after seizing the northern city.
Gunmen, some in military uniforms and others wearing black, stood guard at government buildings and banks, said witnesses reached by telephone from Bashiqa, a town east of Mosul.
They called over loudspeakers for government employees to go back to work.
Hassan al-Juburi, 45, said the militants had set the punishment at 80 lashes for residents who use the abbreviation "ISIL".
"I did not open the door of the shop since last Thursday because of the security conditions," said Abu Ahmed, a 30-year-old shopowner.
Witnesses reported that dozens of families continued to flee the city, but Ahmed said: "I will remain in Mosul. This is my city in any case, and the city is calm now."
Bassam Mohammed, a 25-year-old university student, also said he would stay in Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city which normally has a population of around two million people.
"But I am afraid about freedoms, and I am especially afraid that they will impose new laws on us," Mohammed said.
Jihadists seized all of Mosul and Nineveh province, long a militant stronghold and one of the most dangerous areas in the country, and also took areas in Kirkuk province, to its east, and Salaheddin to the south.
This video, uploaded to YouTube yesterday, appears to show the city of Mosul under the control of the militants.
Abandoned vehicles of government forces are in flames on the streets and fighters are seen roaming the city in pickup trucks.
ISIL said it was behind operations in Nineveh in a series of messages on Twitter, while officials have also blamed the jihadist Sunni group for the unrest.
But it is possible that other militant groups have been involved as well.
Bloodshed is running at its highest levels in Iraq since 2006-2007, when tens of thousands were killed in clashes between the country's Shia majority and Sunni Arab minority.
It has controlled the Iraqi city of Fallujah since December and has won territory in neighbouring Syria.
The insurgents have now advanced into the oil refinery town of Baiji, setting the court house and police station on fire, security sources said today.
The refinery is protected by around 250 guards, and security sources said the militants had sent a delegation of local tribal sheikhs to convince them to withdraw.
The sources said the guards agreed to pull out on condition they were transferred safely to another town.
Powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who led the once-feared Mahdi Army militia, has called for the formation of units to defend religious sites in Iraq.
Mr al-Sadr said in a written statement that he was ready "to form peace units to defend the holy places" of both Muslims and Christians, in cooperation with the government.
His call came after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said the government would arm citizens who volunteer to fight militants, following the fall of Mosul.
The US has said the militants are a threat to the whole region, calling the situation "extremely serious" and urging fractious political groups to fight Iraq's enemies together.
US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the takeover of Iraq's second biggest city in the last 48 hours by forces from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant showed the deterioration of security in the country.
Washington has supplied large amounts of weaponry to Iraq since pulling its forces out in 2011, but Baghdad has failed to heal festering sectarian and political divisions and to curb instability spilling over from the Syrian civil war.
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