DHAKA: The United States condemned Sunday a ‘horrifying’ massacre by militants said to have killed hundreds of Iraqi Shia air force recruits in the northern city of Tikrit, urging the country to unite.

Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have overrun a succession of major towns and cities in the north of Iraq over the last week and are closing on Baghdad.

On Friday, tweets attributed to ISIL claimed the militants had killed 1,700 Shia soldiers as they advanced toward the capital, a figure that has not been independently verified.

‘The claim by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant that it has massacred 1,700 Iraqi Shia air force recruits in Tikrit is horrifying and a true depiction of the bloodlust that these terrorists represent,’ US State Department spokesman Jen Psaki said in a statement, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 1503 HRS, JUNE 16, 2014