Thursday morning, al-Qaeda-inspired insurgents swept through northern Iraq, effortlessly capturing the city of Kirkuk and continuing their push towards Baghdad. Government troops soon abandoned their posts in the north, allowing the Kurdish militants to gain their third major city this week.

Iraq has been in a state of desperate fear ever since the insurgents captured Tikrit and Mosil, Iraq’s second-largest city, earlier this week.

“When the battle got tough in the city of Mosul, the troops dropped their weapons and abandoned their posts, making it an easy prey for the terrorists,” Osama Nuajaifi, the speaker of Iraq’s Council of Representative, said during a news conference in Baghdad. “Everything is fallen. It’s a crisis. Having these terrorist groups control a city in the heart of Iraq threatens not only Iraq but the entire region.”

The rebel forces have roused such terror among the Iraqi people that on Tuesday, Iraq’s government even resorted to asking the United States to help them combat the uprising with air assistance.

Read the full story here. 

Contact Deputy Editor Sara Newman here.  Follow her on Twitter here.