Iraqi Kurds 'fully control Kirkuk' as army flees

Iraqi Kurdish forces say they have taken full control of the northern oil city of Kirkuk as the army flees before an Islamist offensive nearby.

"The whole of Kirkuk has fallen into the hands of peshmerga," Kurdish spokesman Jabbar Yawar told Reuters. "No Iraq army remains in Kirkuk now."
Kurdish fighters are seen as a bulwark against Sunni Muslim insurgents who seized towns in the region this week.
The fall of the city of Mosul sent shock waves across the Middle East.