Rebels seize control of Iraq's Nineveh

 Category: Terrorism News

Northern province falls to ISIL fighters, who are said to have released up to 1,400 prisoners from Mosul city's jails.

  

Armed fighters believed to be part of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant have seized the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh and freed hundreds of prisoners, government officials say.

Overnight, hundreds of fighters launched an assault on the provincial capital Mosul, 350km north of Baghdad, engaging in combat with troops and police, the officials said on Tuesday.

"The city of Mosul is outside the control of the state and at the mercy of the militants," an Interior Ministry official told the AFP news agency, making it the second city to fall to anti-government forces this year.

Turkish media also reported on Tuesday that 28 Turkish lorry drivers were taken hostage by ISIL fighters in Mosul, Iraq's second largest city.

In recent days, fighters have launched major operations in Nineveh and four other provinces, killing scores of people and highlighting both their long reach and the weakness of Iraq's security forces.

Al Jazeera correspondent Imran Khan, reporting from Baghdad, said: "the intelligence estimates Iraq has released suggests it's not just Iraqi fighters. There are foreign fighters who have come to fight for ISIL."

Mosul is the second city to be captured by rebels this year, after the central government lost control of Fallujah.

Source: Al Jazeera

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