It was also
mulling air strikes against the militants, who are led by the jihadist Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant but include loyalists of now-executed Sunni Arab
dictator Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile, the United Nations warned Iraq is in danger
of disintegrating.
A relative
calm in Baghdad - ostensibly as militants have focused on their northern
assault - was shattered by a string of bombings that left 17 people dead, while
the bodies of 18 soldiers and police were found near the city of Samarra, all
shot in the head and chest.
Since the
insurgents launched their lightning assault on June 9, they have captured
Mosul, a city of two million people, and a big chunk of mainly Sunni Arab
territory stretching towards the capital.
The
offensive has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and sent jitters
through world oil markets as the militants have advanced ever nearer Baghdad
leaving the Shiite-led government in disarray.
Officials
said on Tuesday that militants briefly held parts of the city of Baquba, just
40 miles from the capital.
They also
took control of most of Tal Afar, a strategic Shiite-majority town between
Mosul and the border with Syria, where ISIL also has fighters engaged in that
country's three-year-old civil war.
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