Mission accomplished.

[Gob]

Islamist insurgents in Iraq have seized the city of Tikrit, their second major gain after capturing Mosul on Tuesday, security officials say.

Tikrit, the hometown of former leader Saddam Hussein, lies 150km (95 miles) north of the capital Baghdad.

Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki vowed to fight back against the jihadists and punish those in the security forces who fled offering little or no resistance.

The insurgents are from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS).

ISIS, which is also known as ISIL, is an offshoot of al-Qaeda.

It controls considerable territory in eastern Syria and western and central Iraq, in a campaign to set up a Sunni militant enclave straddling the border.

There were also reports on Wednesday of fighting further south, in Samarra, 110km north of Baghdad.

Separately, at least 21 people were killed and 45 hurt by a suicide bomber at a Shia meeting in Baghdad, police said.

As many as 500,000 people fled Mosul after the militants attacked the city. The head of the Turkish mission in Mosul and almost 50 consulate staff are being held by the militants, Turkish officials say.

Turkey's foreign minister warned there would be "harsh retaliation" if any of its citizens were harmed.

Funny, weren't some of us warning that post-invasion Iraq would need careful restructuring to avoid bloody civil war?

[BoSoxGal]

The USS George HW Bush is on the way to the Persian Gulf.


Oh, the irony.

[Econoline]

If they were sending to Iraq not the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush but instead the actual person George W. Bush...
Now, THAT might be something I could really support!

[Sue U]

MISS ME YET?

[Guinevere]

Oh that face is terrifying. No, I don't miss him.