Sunni Militants Capture Another Iraqi Town

Sunni militants captured the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar early on Monday, its mayor and residents said, the latest blow to the nation's Shiite-led government a week after it lost a vast swath of territory in the country's north.

The town, with a population of some 200,000 people, mostly ethnic Shiite and Sunni Turkomen, was taken just before dawn, Mayor Abdulal Abdoul told The Associated Press.

The ethnic mix of Tal Afar, 420 kilometers (260 miles) northwest of Baghdad, raises the grim specter of large-scale atrocities by Sunni militants of the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, who already claim to have killed hundreds of Shiites in areas they captured last week.

A Tal Afar resident reached by phone confirmed the town's fall and said militants in pickup trucks mounted with machineguns and flying black jihadi banners were roaming the streets as gunfire rang out.

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