Iraq delays vote on emergency as crisis spreads

Parliament in Baghdad has delayed voting on a request to grant the prime minister emergency powers as the north slips out of government control, the BBC reported. 

Just 128 out of the 325 MPs turned up for the vote on Nouri Maliki's request.

In the north, Kurdish forces claimed control of the oil city of Kirkuk, saying government forces had fled.

The Kurds secured the area after the cities of Mosul and Kirkuk fell to Sunni Islamist insurgents during a lightning advance.

Kurdish fighters are seen as a bulwark against the Sunni Muslim insurgents but they have also been locked for years in a dispute with Baghdad over Kirkuk, seeking to incorporate it into their own autonomous area.

Led by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), the insurgents are believed to be planning to push further south, to the capital Baghdad and regions dominated by Iraq's Shia Muslim majority, whom they regard as "infidels."

The Iraqi prime minister is believed to be asking for powers to impose curfews, restrict public movements and censor the media.