DHAKA: The city of Tikrit has been seized by fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, security sources have said, the second Iraqi city to fall to the group in as many days.

Sources told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that gunmen had set up checkpoints around the city, which is the capital of Salaheddin province and lies about halfway between Mosul and the capital Baghdad.

‘All of Tikrit is in the hands of the militants,’ a police colonel told media.

A police brigadier general told media that fighters attacked from the north, west and south of the city, and that they were from ISIL.

A police major said that the militants had freed about 300 inmates from a prison in the city.

The city’s capture follows the fall of Mosul on Tuesday. Half a million people are believed to have fled Mosul, a quarter of the city’s population, since the takeover.

The Geneva-based International Organisation for Migration said the takeover had ‘displaced over 500,000 people in and around the city’.

BDST: 2110 HRS, JUNE 11, 2014