Kirkuk

A news photographer was killed while covering fighting between Kurdish security forces and jihadists in northern Iraq on June 12, medical and security sources said.

Militants gained more ground in
Iraq overnight, moving into two towns in the eastern province of Diyala
after security forces abandoned their posts.

Security sources
said the towns of Saadiyah and Jalawla had fallen to the insurgents, as
well as several other villages around the Himreen mountains, which have
long been a hideout for militants.

The march of extremist Islamist fighters on Baghdad and the tearing down of border posts between Iraq and Syria surprise us with their speed. We are not used to seeing such changes on the map, as the years after World War II were devoted to avoiding any change of borders.

The federal government and the autonomous Kurdish region will cooperate against the offensive of Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) militants, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoğlu during a phone call June 12.

Iraqi Kurds seized control of the northern oil city of Kirkuk on June 12, while surging Sunni Islamist rebels advanced towards Baghdad, as the central government's army abandoned its posts in a rapid collapse that has lost it control of the north.

The number of Turkish truck drivers taken hostage by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in northern Iraq has risen from 28 to 32 on June 11.

Turkey has called on the Iraqi government to be more sensitive for providing the security of Turkmens, while condemning the latest attacks in the northeast of the country.