The nearby Muatassam area of Baghdad has also fallen to militants
Kurdish policemen stand guard while refugees from Mosul head to the self-ruled northern Kurdish region outside Irbil, 217 miles (350 kilometers) north of Baghdad, Iraq. (Photo: AP)
Baghdad: Jihadists were pushing toward Baghdad on Thursday after capturing a town only 90 kilometres (56 miles) to its north, in a lightning three-day offensive the Iraqi government has failed to stop.
Fighters from the Sunni Muslim Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant seized the town of Dhuluiyah, a municipal councillor, a police colonel and witnesses told AFP by telephone.
The nearby Muatassam area has also fallen to militants, the municipal council member and witnesses said.
ISIL spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani promised the group would push on to Baghdad and Karbala, a city southwest of the capital that is one of the holiest sites for Shiite Muslims, in a statement carried by jihadists websites.
With militants closing in, Iraq's parliament was to meet for an emergency session on Thursday to consider a request from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the president's office for it to declare a state of emergency.
Doing so requires a two-thirds vote, making it unlikely to pass the sharply divided parliament, which has produced little significant legislation in years and is often poorly attended.
On Wednesday, the militants were repulsed in heavy fighting when they tried to enter Samarra, to the north, bypassing it and heading to Dhuluiyah.
Army Staff Lieutenant General Sabah al-Fatlawi said soldiers and "elite forces" backed by air strikes defeated a "fierce attack by ISIL members," and that troops were regrouping to counter attack.
Samarra is mainly Sunni Arab but is home to a shrine revered by the country's Shiite majority, a site whose bombing by Al-Qaeda-linked militants in 2006 sparked a Shiite-Sunni conflict that killed tens of thousands.
"There is panic among residents," who are buying up goods and forming long queues at petrol stations, Thair Mohammed told AFP from the city.
A resident of Dhuluiyah, Abu Abdullah, said the situation there was calm on Thursday, but people were keeping to their houses.
He said he heard air strikes the night before.
ISIL has spearheaded a major offensive that began late Monday and since overrun the entire northern province of Nineveh and significant parts of Kirkuk to its southeast and Salaheddin to its south.
The offensive began in Nineveh provincial capital Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city. Witnesses said Thursday that people there were increasingly venturing out of their homes and that shops were reopening, but government offices remained shuttered.
Baghdad: An al-Qaida-inspired group has vowed to march on to Baghdad after seizing two key Sunni-dominated cities in Iraq.
A spokesman for the Islamic State of Iran and the Levant says the group has old scores to settle with the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.
The spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, also threatened that ISIL fighters will take the southern Iraqi Shiite cities of Karbala and Najaf, which hold two of the holiest shrines for Shiite Muslims.
The statement, which could not be independently verified, came in an audio posting Thursday on militant websites commonly used by the group.
( Source : AFP )
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