Kurdish forces announced that they have taken full control of Kirkuk after the Iraqi army fled before the ISIS offensive nearby Nineveh governorate. "The whole of Kirkuk has fallen into the hands of peshmerga," Kurdish spokesman Jabbar Yawar told Reuters. "No Iraq army remains in Kirkuk now." The fall of Mosul, Nineveh's capital and the country's second city, to ISIS threatens to unravel the delicate political balance in Iraq's north. Kirkuk and the surrounding governorate of Tamim (see map) has long been at the heart of a dispute between Iraq's Arabs and Kurds. ISIS is reported to be shelling areas south of Kirkuk. "After their defeat by the Peshmerga, the ISIS are now shelling the liberated areas from a distance, using seized Iraqi weapons," said Anwar Haji Osman, the Kurdistan Regional Government's deputy minister of Peshmerga, the Kurdish armed force.

An estimated half a million have fled Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, since it was seized by forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) June 10. The Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM) said the takeover of Mosul, capital of Nineveh governorate, has "displaced over 500,000 people in and around the city." Most are taking refuge in the neighboring Kurdish autonomous zone. Said Boumedouha, Amnesty International's Middle East deputy program director, urged: "The Kurdistan Regional Government and neighboring countries must provide civilians fleeing the conflict with refuge. The international community must also provide support towards the humanitarian needs of people displaced as a result of the violence.” (Al Jazeera, AI, June 11) Following the fall of Mosul, ISIS militants have been advancing south, towards Baghdad. On June 11 they seized Tikrit, capital of Salaheddin governorate, just 150 kilometers from Baghdad. The Salaheddin cities of Tuz Khourmatu and Baiji are likewise reported to have fallen. Prime Minister Nouri Maliki vowed to resist the offensive and punish those in the security forces who fled after offering little or no resistance. (UN News Centre, AFP, BBC News, June 11)