Saddam Hussein’s home city of Tikrit falls to ISIS Wednesday June 11,2014

This afternoon Wednesday June 11,2014 the Al Qaeda-inspired militants have seized control of Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit.

Iraqi security officials confirmed Tikrit was under the control of Isis and said the provincial governor was missing.
Tikrit, the capital of Salahuddin province, is 80 miles north of Baghdad
  

In the past two days the group has overrun the northern city of Mosul, and today also took Tikrit, the hometown of executed Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein.
The Islamist militia which today took a second major city of Tikrit in Iraq and is turning its eyes south towards the capital Baghdad is so ruthless and extreme that even al-Qaeda has cut ties and distances itself from them.
The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as Isis), used to be part of the international terror network,is famed - and feared - for spreading hardline Islamic law to the areas it subdues. Transgressors are sentenced to death and swiftly executed in public, their bodies left to decay in the streets
The ISIS fighters are from the Sunni branch of Islam - as was Saddam Hussein - in contrast to the current Shia government

In February 2014, the leader of al-Qaeda issued a statement dissociating itself from Isis, which it accused of 'forbidden bloodshed' directed at fellow fighters.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's chief, cut ties after Isis attempted to bolster its strength by merging with other rebels in Syria.
ISIS is led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has a U.S. bounty of $10million on his head, second only to al-Zawahiri.
The ISIS leader, who was born in 1971 in Baghdad, is touted as a battlefield commander and tactician.

Violent and mysterious: This undated photograph is one of only a few in existence showing Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of Isis

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has a degrees in Islamic studies, apparently joined the insurgency that erupted in Iraq soon after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was taken as a prisoner of the Americans in Camp Bucca between 2005 and 2007 - it was here that one of the only two photos know to be in existence was taken of him.

ISIS which controls large areas of land in Syria, is thought to be pouring resources and money from those areas into its burgeoning Iraqi campaign, which has seen it tear through the northern regions on the country.

Its military progress, largely unhindered by Iraq's own security forces, have given it control over several highly valuable oil fields, which leaders will hope to exploit to strengthen their hand.

ISIS in Iraq

• The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) has 3,000 to 5,000 fighters, and grew out of an al-Qaeda-linked organisation in Iraq
• ISIS has exploited the standoff between the Iraqi government and the minority Sunni Arab community, which complains that Shia PM Nouri Maliki is monopolising power
• It has already taken over Ramadi and Falluja, but taking over Mosul is a far greater feat than anything the movement has achieved so far, and will send shockwaves throughout the region
• The organisation is led by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi  - an obscure figure regarded as a battlefield commander and tactician. He was once the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, one of the groups that later became ISIS.