BASHIQA, Iraq: Half a million people were estimated on Wednesday to have fled Iraq’s second city of Mosul, as Islamist militants tightened their grip after overrunning it and a swathe of other territory.

In a spectacular blow to the Shiite-led government, the jihadists spearheaded by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Tuesday seized Mosul, its surrounding region of Nineveh and areas of Kirkuk and Salaheddin province.

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