Al Qaeda-inspired militants in Iraq vowed Thursday to march against Baghdad after seizing two key cities in the north of the country this week.
A spokesman for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) said in audio posted on militant websites commonly used by the group that the fighters have old scores to settle with Iraq's Shiite-led government.
The spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, also threatened that Sunni ISIL fighters would capture the southern Iraqi Shiite cities of Karbala and Najaf, which hold two of the holiest shrines for Shiite Muslims.
The Washington Post reported that militants had reached the city of Samarra, approximately 80 miles north of the Iraqi capital, by nightfall Wednesday.
Meanwhile, members of Iraq's parliament were expected to vote Thursday on a request by embattled Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to declare a state of emergency. If lawmakers approve, the prime minister would be granted wider powers in running the country. Legal experts say those could include powers to impose curfews, restrict public movements and censor the media.
The Iraq prime minister has reportedly appealed for a military response from the Obama administration, but the New York Times reported that the White House has so far rebuffed al-Maliki's requests. The Times reports that the White House has been reluctant to reengage in Iraq since withdrawing the last U.S. forces from the country in 2011.
Militants took Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit on Wednesday, as soldiers and security forces abandoned their posts and yielded ground once controlled by U.S. forces.
Only a day earlier, they seized control of much of Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, sending an estimated half a million people fleeing from their homes. As in Tikrit, the Sunni militants were able to move in after police and military forces melted away following relatively brief clashes.
The group, which has seized wide swaths of territory, aims to create an Islamic emirate spanning both sides of the Iraq-Syria border.
The capture of Mosul -- along with the fall of Tikrit and the militants' earlier seizure of the city of Fallujah and parts of Ramadi, the capital of western Anbar province -- have undone hard-fought gains against insurgents in the years following the 2003 invasion by U.S.-led forces.
There were no reliable estimates of casualties or the number of insurgents involved, though several hundred gunmen were in Tikrit and more were fighting on the outskirts, said Mizhar Fleih, the deputy head of the Samarra municipal council. An even larger number of militants likely would have been needed to secure Mosul, a much bigger city.
The militants gained entry to the Turkish consulate in Mosul and held captive 48 people, including diplomats, police, consulate employees and three children, according to an official in the office of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkish officials believe the hostages are safe, the source said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment to reporters on the sensitive issue.
The White House said in a statement that Vice President Joe Biden spoke with Erdogan and called for the safe and immediate return of the Turkish personnel and family members. Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency reported that Erdogan convened an emergency Cabinet meeting.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the abductions and the seizure of Iraqi territory by the militants, urging "the international community to unite in showing solidarity with Iraq as it confronts this serious security challenge."
"Terrorism must not be allowed to succeed in undoing the path towards democracy in Iraq," Ban said.
Mosul, the capital of Ninevah province, and the neighboring Sunni-dominated province of Anbar share a long and porous border with Syria, where the Islamic State is also active.
Mosul's fall was a heavy defeat for al-Maliki. His Shiite-dominated political bloc came first in April 30 parliamentary elections -- the first since the U.S. military withdrawal in 2011 -- but failed to gain a majority, forcing him to try to build a governing coalition.
Without assigning direct blame, al-Maliki said a "conspiracy" led to the massive security failure that allowed militants to capture Mosul, and warned that members of the security forces who fled rather than stand up to the militants should be punished.
"We are working to solve the situation," al-Maliki said. "We are regrouping the armed forces that are in charge of clearing Ninevah from those terrorists."
Iranian airlines cancelled all flights between Tehran and Baghdad due to security concerns, and the Islamic Republic has intensified security measures along its borders, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported.
Shiite powerhouse Iran has strong ties with Iraq's government. Some 17,000 Iranian pilgrims are in Iraq at any given time, the agency quoted Saeed Ohadi, the director of Iran's Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization, as saying.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest warned that the instability was rapidly becoming a humanitarian issue requiring a coordinated response by Iraq's leaders to halt ISIL's advance and wrest territory away from insurgents.
Earnest told reporters traveling with Obama that ISIL poses a "different kind of threat" to American interests than core Al Qaeda, which had repeatedly and publicly vowed to attack U.S. soil. Still, he said the U.S. was watching the threat from ISIL "very carefully" because the group has proven itself to be violent and willing to consider attacking U.S. interests and American allies.
Tikrit residents said the militant group overran several police stations in the Sunni-dominated city. Two Iraqi security officials confirmed that the city, 80 miles north of Baghdad and the capital of Salahuddin province, was under ISIL's control and that the provincial governor was missing.
The major oil refinery in Beiji, located between Mosul and Tikrit, remained in government control, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to talk to reporters. There were clashes and gunmen tried to take the town but were repelled in a rare success for Iraqi government forces protecting an important facility, the officials said.
In addition to being Saddam's hometown, Tikrit was a power base of his once-powerful Baath Party. The former dictator was captured by U.S. forces while hiding in a hole in the area and he is buried south of town in a tomb draped with the Saddam-era Iraqi flag.
The International Organization for Migration estimated that 500,000 people fled the Mosul area, with some seeking safety in the Ninevah countryside or the nearby semiautonomous Kurdish region. Getting into the latter has grown trickier, however, with migrants without family members already in the enclave needing to secure permission from Kurdish authorities, according to the IOM.
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Mosul's fall must bring the country's leaders together to deal with the "serious, mortal threat" facing Iraq.
"We can push back on the terrorists ... and there would be a closer cooperation between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government to work together and try to flush out these foreign fighters," he said on the sidelines of a diplomatic meeting in Athens.
Mosul residents said gunmen went around knocking on doors there Wednesday, reassuring people they would not be harmed. The situation appeared calm but tense, they said.
Violence raged elsewhere in Iraq on Wednesday.
Police and hospital officials said a suicide bomber struck inside a tent where tribesmen were meeting to solve a dispute in Baghdad's Shiite Sadr City neighborhood, killing 31 and wounding 46.
Car bombs in Shiite areas elsewhere claimed another 17 and maimed dozens, officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Car bombs and suicide attackers are favorite tools of the ISIL.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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