Summary
Fighting erupted at the northern approaches to Baghdad Tuesday as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki fired several top security officers over advances spearheaded by ISIS.
Since the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria insurgents, backed by fighters from disgruntled tribal and other factions, launched a lightning assault on June 9 they have captured Mosul, a city of 2 million people, and a big chunk of mainly Sunni Arab territory stretching south toward the capital.
Officials said Tuesday that militants briefly held parts of the city of Baqouba, just 60 kilometers from the capital.
They also took control of most of Tal Afar, a strategic Shiite-majority town between Mosul and the border with Syria, where ISIS also has fighters engaged in that country's three-year-old civil war.
Further south, security personnel abandoned the Iraqi side of a key crossing on the border with Syria, officers said.
The Iraqi army left the Rabia border crossing to Kurdish forces last week.
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