9:59 AM
Video footage from Mosul shows militants from an al-Qaeda offshoot, ISIS, driving through the streets
Iraq's
prime minister has asked parliament to declare a state of emergency
after Islamist militants effectively took control of Mosul.
Nouri Maliki acknowledged "vital areas" of the country's second largest city had been seized.Overnight, hundreds of armed men seized local government's offices and police stations before taking control of the airport and the army's headquarters.
About 150,000 people are believed to have fled the city.
Sources have told BBC Arabic that they are heading to three towns in the nearby region of Kurdistan where authorities have set up temporary camps for them.
Nouri Maliki: "The seriousness of the situation
needs immediate and swift measures to preserve the national security and
the people"
Elsewhere, a double bomb attack in the central town of Baquba killed at least 20 people, police and medics said. The blasts, targeting a funeral procession, also wounded 28 people.
In the past week, the jihadist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and its allies have attacked cities and towns in western and northern Iraq, killing scores of people.
Security sources also told the BBC on Tuesday that fierce fighting had erupted between Iraqi forces and ISIS fighters in a town called Rashad near Kirkuk, south-east of Mosul.
'Maximum alert' The BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut says ISIS has been informally controlling much of Nineveh province for months, imposing tolls on the movement of goods and demanding protection money from local officials.
After five days of fighting, they took control of key installations in Mosul, which has a population of about 1.8 million.
Many Nineveh residents fled to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq on Tuesday
Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, who is struggling to form a government in the wake of the April elections, has vowed to drive the ISIS "terrorists" out of mainly-Sunni Mosul in short order.
He is unlikely to succeed soon. He made similar vows when Sunni militants took over Falluja, west of Baghdad, in January, and they are still there.
It is not yet clear whether it is only ISIS involved in the Mosul takeover. In Falluja and its province, Anbar, Mr Maliki has clearly alienated many Sunni tribesmen and others, creating fertile soil for the radicals.
Internet images of local youths and even children stoning Iraqi security vehicles as they fled Mosul suggest that the Shia PM is not popular there either.
ISIS is also actively fighting in neighbouring eastern Syria to establish its control there, apparently aiming to straddle the border with an Islamic state.
If Mr Maliki is to defeat the Sunni radicals, he may need the help of Kurdish forces from the north. That will come with a heavy price tag, and they have in any case so far refused.
But Mr Nujaifi fled shortly before the provincial government's headquarters fell to the onslaught late on Monday.
Video footage from Mosul shows ISIS militants driving through the streets and vehicles on fire
Reinforcements deployed to Mosul by the Iraqi military have failed to halt the militants' advance
"The situation is chaotic inside the city and there is nobody to help us," said government worker Umm Karam. "We are afraid."
Many police stations were reported to have been set on fire and hundreds of detainees set free.
Osama al-Nujaifi, the speaker of parliament and brother of Nineveh's governor, called on the Iraqi government and Kurdistan Regional Government to send reinforcements to Mosul to "fight the terrorists", whom he said had seized military hardware, including helicopters.
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