Irbil, Iraq:
Militants with the Islamic State extremist group on Sunday seized two small towns in northern Iraq after driving out Kurdish security forces, further expanding the territories under their control, officials and residents said.
The fresh gains by the Sunni extremist militants have forced dozens of residents to flee from the religiously mixed towns of Zumar and Sinjar, near the militant-held city of Mosul, to the northern self-ruled Kurdish region, they said.
Mosul governor Atheel al-Nujaifi, who fled to the largely autonomous Kurdish region when the Islamic State group and allied Sunni militants seized Iraq's second largest city in June, told The Associated Press that the two towns fell after fierce clashes that erupted the day before.
A resident in Sinjar said the militants blew up a small revered Shiite site, while another in Zumar said they took over at least two oil fields. Both spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
Iraq is facing its worst crisis since the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. troops. The Islamic State, an al-Qaida breakaway group, captured large swaths of land in the country's west and north in a lightning offensive earlier this year.
When it overran the cities of Mosul and Tikrit in June, Iraqi security forces virtually collapsed. In most cases, police and soldiers simply ran, abandoning arsenals of heavy weapons.
The Islamic State group has carved out a self-styled caliphate in a large area straddling the Iraqi-Syrian border.