Iraqi Shiite Cleric Issues Call to Arms Against Sunni Militants

BAGHDAD - Sunni insurgents pressing toward Baghdad were reported on Friday to have fanned out to the east, taking two towns near Iraq's border with Iran, further splintering the country into hostile fiefs and raising the stakes in a perilous regional crisis.

The capture of the towns of Saadiyah and Jalawla came a day after Kurdish forces further north seized on the accelerating rout of government troops to take over the oil city of Kirkuk, long contested by Iraqi Kurds and the country's Arab leaders in Baghdad.

The Kurds control a semiautonomous region and have long eyed independence. The Kurdish moves on Thursday presented Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki with a twin challenge by Kurds and Sunni militants to restore Iraq's cohesion and his government's authority in face of the worst security crisis since the American withdrawal in 2011 and the apparent disintegration of the American-armed Iraqi Army.

Kurdish troops also moved into Jalawla to secure their political party offices before the Sunni militants aligned with the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria took over the town, Reuters reported, but there were no reports of casualties. The town is in ethnically mixed Diyala Province - a tinderbox region bordering Iran that controls one approach to Baghdad through the town of Baquba, 20 miles north of the capital.

There were reports that Iraqi government troops - who have abandoned several key locations including Mosul, Iraq's second city, and Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein - had lobbed artillery shells into the two captured towns from near Muqdadiya, around 50 miles from Baghdad, prompting an exodus of civilians.

On the main axis of combat along the highway running south from Mosul there were no indication early on Friday that the insurgents had been able to seize the frontline town of Samarra, 70 miles north of Baghdad, which is home to a Shiite shrine and is reportedly defended by militias from Iraq's Shiite majority.

Thousands of Shiite volunteers were reported to be mobilizing. 'We hope that all the Shiite groups will come together and move as one man to protect Baghdad and the other Shiite areas,' said Abu Mujahid, one of the militia leaders.

In the east, the reports of insurgent activity in Diyala Province followed unconfirmed reports that Iran, an ally of Mr. Maliki's Shiite-led government, had sent Revolutionary Guards into Iraq. Iraqi Shiite militia leaders contacted in Baghdad said they knew of no such assistance from Iran and had not asked for any.

Iran's state-run news media reported this week that Tehran had strengthened its forces along the Iraq border and suspended all pilgrim visas into Iraq but had received no request from Iraq for military help.

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