Militants seize northern Iraqi town as tensions escalate

Sunni militants captured the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar early today, its mayor and residents said, the latest blow to the nation’s Shia-led government a week after it lost a vast swathe 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 said.

The ethnic mix of Tal Afar, 420km north-west of Baghdad, raises the grim spectre of large-scale atrocities by Sunni militants of the al Qaida-inspired Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (Isis) also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, who already claim to have killed hundreds of Shia in areas they captured last week.

A Tal Afar resident reached by phone confirmed the town’s fall and said militants in pick-up trucks mounted with machine guns and flying black jihadi banners were roaming the streets as gunfire rang out. The local security force left the town before dawn, said Hadeer al-Abadi, who spoke 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 Mr al-Abadi.

The fall of Tal Afar comes a week after Sunni militants captured Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, and Saddam Hussein’s home town of Tikrit in a lightning offensive.

Earlier, militants posted graphic photos that appeared to show their gunmen massacring scores of captured Iraqi soldiers.

The images were released as Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki vowed to “liberate every inch” of territory captured by the insurgents.

The pictures on a militant website appear to show Isis masked 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 captives soaked in blood after being shot.

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 reporters 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 could not immediately be verified.

US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the Isis militants' claim of killing the Iraqi troops "is horrifying and a true depiction of the bloodlust that those terrorists represent".

She added that a claim that 1,700 were killed could not be confirmed by the US.

UN human rights chief Navi Pillay warned against “murder of all kinds” and other war crimes in Iraq, saying the number killed in recent days may run into the hundreds.

She said in a statement that her office had received reports that militants rounded up and killed Iraqi soldiers as well as 17 civilians in a single street in Mosul.

Her office also heard of “summary executions and extrajudicial killings” after Isis militants overran Iraqi cities and towns, she said.

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 US withdrawal in 2011.

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

Although the government bolstered defences around Baghdad, a series of explosions inside the capital killed at least 19 people and wounded more than 40, police and hospital officials said.

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

The embassy is within Baghdad’s Green Zone, and its 5,000 personnel make it the largest US diplomatic post in the world.

Some embassy staff members have been temporarily moved elsewhere to more stable places at consulates in Basra in the Shia-dominated south of Iraq and Irbil in the Kurdish semi-autonomous region in north-eastern Iraq and to Jordan. US travellers in the country were encouraged to exercise caution and limit travel to certain parts of Iraq.

While the city of seven million is not in any immediate danger of falling to the militants, food prices have risen - twofold in some cases - because of transportation disruptions on the main road heading north from the capital. The city is under a night-time curfew that begins at 10pm.

Agencies