Ok whose for ISIL hands up

Since taking Hit on Thursday, Islamic State fighters have raised their flags on the municipality building and police stations, while Islamic State vehicles were patrolling the streets of the town.

Islamic State took advantage of refugees fleeing Hit to enter Kubaisa, 19 km (10 miles) to the east.

A man escaping Hit, named Abu Saif, described approaching the checkpoint for Kubaisa when three or four cars sped up from behind them and shot dead the soldiers guarding the city.

“We thought that they were displaced families as well. They didn’t look like Islamic State militants to us,” Abu Saif said.

The radical Sunni Muslim militants have captured swathes of western and northern Iraq, including the north’s biggest city Mosul in June, as well as large areas of the east and north of neighbouring Syria.