Insurgents take control of Saddam’s hometown

Al-Qaeda-inspired militants seized effective control of Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, expanding their offensive closer to the Iraqi capital as mass beheadings were being reported.

Soldiers and security forces abandoned their posts following clashes with the insurgents.

Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) took control a day earlier of much of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, in a major blow to the authority of the country’s Shiite government. An estimated half a million residents fled the economically important city.