Militants Took Full Control Of The Dam

Residents living near Iraq's largest dam say Sunni militants from the 'Islamic State' group have overrun the complex.
According to residents living near Iraq's second-largest city of Mosul, the IS militants took control of the dam within an hour, after a week's fighting against local Kurdish fighters.

 The dam lies on the Tigris River, which runs through Iraq's capital, Baghdad.

A white dove perches near a cross on to of a church in Telkaif, near Mosul

 The news of the strategic success comes as tens of thousands of Christians were forced to flee as IS members took control of a swathe of villages, according to the head of the Chaldean Catholic church. 

 The group had occupied and destroyed churches, removed and destroyed crosses and destroyed important manuscripts, Patriarch Louis Sako said.

 "There are 100,000 displaced Christians who have fled with nothing but their clothes, some of them on foot, to reach the Kurdistan region," he revealed.

 "This is a humanitarian disaster. The churches are occupied, their crosses were taken down."

An Iraqi Christian seeking refuge in a church last month

 The village of Qaraqoush and at least four other predominantly Christian hamlets are now in the hands of militants, Bishop Joseph Tomas said.

 The bishop said Kurdish peshmerga units, which had protected the area, had also fled.

 The Pope has called for world governments to take steps to protect Christians driven from their villages in northern Iraq and provide them with humanitarian aid.

Patriarch Sako described the situation as a 'humanitarian disaster'

 In a statement, Pope Francis urged the international community to "put an end to the humanitarian drama underway, adopt measures to protect those who are threatened by violence and assure them necessary aid, especially urgent for those who are homeless and depend on the solidarity of others". 

 Now-emptied Christian communities in the region date from the first centuries of Christianity. 

 The IS has already seized large chunks of northern and western Iraq, plunging the country into its worst crisis since the 2011 withdrawal of US troops. 

 The Sunni militants have strengthened their grip near the Kurdish region, having inflicted a humiliating defeat on Kurdish forces at the weekend.

Members of the Yezidi sect are fleeing the fighting

 The IS's gains forced Iraq's Shi'ite PM Nuri al Maliki to order his air force to help the Kurds. 

 The group has been been purging Shi'ite Muslims of the Shabak and ethnic Turkmen minorities from towns and villages in Nineveh.

 The militants' capture of the town of Sinjar, ancestral home of the Yezidi ethnic minority, prompted tens of thousands of people to flee to surrounding mountains, where they are at risk of starvation. 

 The IS sees the Yezidis, followers of an ancient religion derived from Zoroastrianism, as "devil worshippers".