(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki presented an official request to the parliament Tuesday to declare emergency state nationwide after losing control of the strategic northern city of Mosul for militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS).
In a statement following an emergency meeting for Iraqi cabinet, Al-Maliki said that Iraqi Presidency and Cabinet have presented two requests for the parliament to declare the state of emergency across the Iraq.
The Iraqi Prime Minister urged the United Nations, European Union, and the Arab League to support his country in its fight against terrorism.
Al-Maliki called for "public mobilization" to counter the growing threat of ISIS militants. He promised to reshuffle the military leadership who were in charge of Mosul's security.
The Iraqi Premier's statement came a few hours of the fall of Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, at the hands of the ISIS's fighters.
Overnight, hundreds of men armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machine-guns seized the Nineveh provincial government's offices in Mosul.
They also destroyed several police stations before overrunning the airport and army's operations headquarters.
Meanwhile, Parliament Speaker Osama Al-Nujaifi admitted that ISIS fighters have wrestled control over all Nineveh Province not only the city of Mosul. He pointed out that ISIS terrorists had seized military hardware, including helicopters from the military bases in the province.
He called for national unity and urgent government moves to crash the militants and restore control over the strategic province.
He stressed that military and security leaders who did not do their job in defending the Province and fled it after the entry of ISIS fighter should be brought to accountability.
He called on the Iraqi government and Kurdistan Regional Government to send reinforcements to Mosul.
"What happened is a disaster by any standard," he said.
"The presence of these terrorist groups in this vast province... threatens not just the security and the unity of Iraq, but the whole Middle East."
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