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Sunni insurgents seize control of Iraq's second largest city Isis insurgents seize control of Iraqi city of Mosul
(about 1 hour later)
The prime minister of Iraq has asked parliament to declare a state of emergency as radical Sunni Muslim insurgents seized control of the country's second largest city, Mosul. Islamic extremists have seized control of much of Mosul in northern Iraq after troops abandoned their posts and government buildings, in a serious blow to Baghdad's efforts to slow a raging insurgency.
Militants with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), an offshoot of al-Qaida, overran a military base and freed hundreds of prisoners in a spectacular strike against the Shia-led Iraqi government. After four days of fighting in which country's third most populous city all but slip from its grasp, Baghdad announced it would arm citizens in a bid to curb the threat from extremists in three cities and much of the northern countryside. Details about the plan were initially sparse, but Iraqi officials suggested a collaboration between tribal leaders and the US military that quelled an insurgency in 2007 might be used as a template.
The capture of Mosul follows four days of fierce fighting in cities and towns in northern Iraq. The incumbent prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, said during a televised news conference that he had asked the Iraqi parliament to declared a state of emergency.
On Tuesday, 20 people were killed when two bombs exploded near a funeral procession in Baquba. The blasts in the capital of Diyala province, 37 miles (60km) north of Baghdad, also wounded 28 people, police and doctors said. Officials in Mosul say the city is now effectively in the hands of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis), a group inspired by al-Qaida that has remained in control of parts of Fallujah and Ramadi for the past six months. Isis has carved out a cross-border swath of influence in Syria; from al-Bab, east of Aleppo, through the lawless eastern deserts and into Anbar province, Iraq.
Mourners were carrying the body of a teacher, who was shot dead the previous night, to a cemetery when the blasts occurred. The Iraqi military has been unable to stop the Isis's advances, or the multiple-bombing campaigns the Sunni extremist group frequently launches in an effort to disrupt the country's Shia power base and to re-establish a caliphate governed by fundamentalist Islamic law.
The fall of Mosul deals a serious blow to Baghdad's efforts to fight Sunni militants who have regained ground and momentum in Iraq over the past year and pushed into Mosul last week. With its authority steadily crumbling, Iraq has asked the Obama administration to provide it with missiles and artillery. Iraq has not sought a return of US forces and Barack Obama has been deeply reluctant to commit to deploying troops in the region.
Across the border in Syria, embroiled in three years of civil war between the president, Bashar al-Assad, and rebels seeking to oust him, Isil fighters have seized control of swathes of eastern territory close to the Iraqi border. Strategic posts in Mosul were seized after four days of running battles with security forces, many of which withdrew on Tuesday after hundreds of extremists armed with assault weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launches edged closer to the city centre.
Isil militants from Iraq have joined the battle in Syria along with other foreign fighters. The jihadi group is seeking to establish an Islamist state by connecting territory it controls in western Iraq and eastern Syria. Militants released prisoners from the city's prisons and are reported to have raised the Isis flag above civic buildings. Developments appear to have caught senior Iraqi officials off-guard in Baghdad, where Maliki has been trying for the past six weeks to assemble a coalition that would secure him a third term as leader after parliamentary elections in May.
Police, military and security officials told Reuters the insurgents, armed with anti-aircraft weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, had taken over almost all police and army checkpoints in and around Mosul. In a statement released on Tuesday, he said he would create a leadership group responsible for sourcing and arming residents. He offered no details of when arming might take place, or who might receive weapons.
"We have lost Mosul this morning. Army and police forces left their positions and Isil terrorists are in full control," said an army colonel at the local military command. "It's a total collapse for the security forces." Maliki had positioned himself as the only Iraqi politician who could stand up to Isis. But his forces have been unable to win back Fallujah, or Ramadi and seem increasingly impotent as the insurgency gathers steam.
Two Iraqi army officers said security forces had received orders to leave the city after militants captured the Ghizlani army base in southern Mosul and set more than 200 prisoners free from a high security jail. Iraqi officials believe about 6,000 Isis militants are in Iraq, although the number could be several thousand greater with members regularly crossing the porous border with Syria.
The retreating army and police forces set fire to fuel and ammunition depots in order to prevent the militants using them, Iraqi officers said. The group's leadership is almost exclusively comprised of Iraqis, battle-hardened by close to a decade-long insurgency against US forces and a gruelling civil war against the country's Shias. But its rank and file hails from all corners of the Arab world, as well as Europe, south Asia and south-east Asia.
Two police sources and a local government official said the Isil militants had also stormed a jail, allowing more than 1,000 prisoners to escape, which they identified as belonging mostly to Isil and alQaida. Isis played a prominent role in Syria's civil war throughout last year, subverting both moderate and Islamist groups lined up in against the regime of Bashar al-Assad in the north of the country. Its influence, though, was sharply curtailed earlier this year when opposition groups ousted it from Idlib and Aleppo, two Syrian cities where it had been most active.
Thousands of families were fleeing the city and moving towards the autonomous Kurdish region, which shares a border with Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital. Ever since, Isis leaders have consolidated their power base in the eastern city of Raqqa while intensifying their operations in Iraq.
"Mosul now is like hell. It's up in flames," said Amina Ibrahim, who was leaving the city with her young children. "I lost my husband in a bomb blast last year, I don't want my kids to follow him." Mosul had remained restive even after the Awakening project, which quelled an earlier jihadist insurgency in 2007. Then, as now, jihadists aspiring to restore a caliphate, had imposed a ruthless hardline regime upon communities that had initially agreed to host them. The Anbar Awakening helped to bring relative normalcy to Fallujah and Ramadi return until late last year, but Mosul and its surrounds were still largely ungovernable.
On Monday, governor Atheel Nujaifi made a televised plea to the people of Mosul to fight militants. Nujaifi himself escaped from the provincial headquarters in Mosul after militants surrounded it late on Monday.
Several army officers said Iraqi forces were demoralised and do not have the fighting stamina of Isil fighters.
"We can't beat them. We can't. They are well trained in street fighting and we're not. We need a whole army to drive them out of Mosul," one officer said. "They're like ghosts: they appear to strike and disappear in seconds."