Militants capture town in northern Iraq

Sunni militants have captured the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, close to the Syrian border, the mayor and residents said today.

Mayor Abdulal Abdoul told the Associated Press that his town, located 260 miles (420km) north-west of Baghdad, was taken just before dawn.

The town has a population of some 200,000 people, mostly ethnic Shiite and Sunni Turkomen.

Residents in the town reached by phone confirmed its capture by militants.

The fall of Tal Afar comes a week after militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant captured Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, and Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit in a lightening offensive.