DHAKA: Iraq's prime minister has asked the United States to carry out drone and air strikes against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters, but the US has so far refused to get involved, according to a report. 

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the request was made by Nuri al-Maliki last month as the threat from ISIL escalated.

Al Jazeera's David Schuster, reporting from New York, said while there had been no official comment from the US on the story, US officials had been "quick to point out that the situation in Iraq is under constant review". 

"The response could be quite different in the days and weeks ahead," Schuster said.

Sources in Washington indicated that the US was weighing possibilities for more military assistance - including drone strikes - to Baghdad. However, others signalled that the US instead wanted to strengthen Iraqi forces.

The city of Tikrit on Wednesday became the second to fall to ISIL in two days.  

Sources told Al Jazeera that gunmen had set up checkpoints around the city, which lies between the capital Baghdad and Mosul, Iraq's second largest city which was captured by ISIL on Tuesday.

"All of Tikrit is in the hands of the militants," a police colonel told the AFP news agency. A police brigadier general told AFP that fighters attacked from the north, west and south of the city, and that they were from ISIL.

A police major told the agency that ISIL had freed about 300 inmates from a prison in the city, which is the capital of Salaheddin province.

Source: Al-Jazeera

BDST: 1217 HRS, JUN 12, 2014