- U.S. aircraft carrier and guided-missile destroyers sent to the Persian Gulf
- Iranian special forces are also streaming in to bolster Baghdad's defences
- Sunni Muslims are returning to Mosul after ISIS 'liberation' of the city
Islamist militants in Iraq have boasted of slaughtering dozens of Iraqi soldiers captured in the fighting which has consumed the country in recent days.
Pictures posted on a militant website appear to show masked fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) forcing captives to lie down in a shallow ditch.
Further photos appear to show the bodies of the men soaked in blood after being shot.
Isis militants with captured Iraqi soldiers wearing plain clothes after taking over a base in Tikrit, Iraq
The soldiers were forced to lie face-down in flat bed trucks before being driven away for alaughter
Captions say the killings were to avenge the death of ISIS commander Abdul-Rahman al-Beilawy, the Associated Press reported.
Al-Beilawy's death was reported by ISIS and the Iraqi government shortly before the Islamist group seized control of Mosul, Iraq's second city, and Tikrit, hometown of former dictator Saddam Hussein, in a lightning offensive.
Iraq's top military spokesman, Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, confirmed the photos' authenticity today. He said he was aware of cases of mass murder of captured Iraqi soldiers in areas held by ISIS.
The full set of photos shows militants loading the men into flatbed trucks before forcing them to lie face-down in a shallow ditch with their arms tied behind their backs. The final images appear to show the bodies of the captives after being shot.
The captives are herded by the armed men. Iraq's military spokesman, Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, confirmed the photos' authenticity today and said he was aware of cases of mass murder of captured soldiers
The soldiers seconds before they are killed. UN human rights chief Navi Pillay warned of 'murder of all kinds' in Iraq
The soldiers are executed where they lie in a shallow ditch
Most of the soldiers who appear in the pictures are in civilian clothes. Some are shown wearing military uniforms underneath, indicating they may have hastily disguised themselves as civilians to try to escape.
'This is the fate of the Shi'ites which Nuri (al-Maliki, Iraq's president) brought to fight the Sunnis,' a caption to one of the pictures reads.
Others showed ISIS fighters apparently seizing facilities in Tikrit.
A picture circulated by jihadists shows ISIS militants standing next to captured vehicles left behind by Iraqi security forces at an unknown location, thought to be Tikrit, the home town of Saddam Hussein
Militants in a captured vehicle. ISIS has vowed to take the battle to Baghdad and cities further south housing many Shiite shrines, sparking a international response bringing the U.S. and Iran on to the same side
An ISIS militant waves the black flag of the Islamist group as his comrades ride past in captured vehicles
The grisly images could further sharpen sectarian tensions as hundreds of Shiites heed a call from a spiritual leader to take up arms against the Sunni militants that have swept across the north.
ISIS has vowed to take the battle to Baghdad and cities further south housing many Shiite shrines. Hundreds of Shiite men were today attending recruitment centres in Baghdad to be armed in response to a call by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani for Iraqis to defend their country
A car bomb meanwhile exploded in central Baghdad, killing 10 and wounding 21, according to police and hospital officials. Baghdad has seen an escalation in suicide and car bombings in recent months, mostly targeting Shiite neighbourhoods or security forces.
Iraqi men volunteering to fight alongside the Iraqi security forces against militants sit at the back of a military truck outside a recruitment centre Baghdad today after a call to arms by their spiritual leader
The men were responding to a call by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani for Iraqis to defend their country
Iraqi civilians volunteering to fight a militant offensive gather themselves together today
Shiite volunteers travelling off to fight along side the Iraqi security forces against Jihadist militants, flash victory signs as they leave a Baghdad recruitment centre aboard military trucks earlier today
More volunteers aboard military trucks. The advance of Sunni militant group ISIS is deepening sectarian divisions in Iraq, which has been increasingly split along religious lines since the 2003 invasion
UN human rights chief Navi Pillay warned on Friday of 'murder of all kinds' and other war crimes in Iraq, and said the number killed in recent days may run into the hundreds, while the wounded could approach 1,000.
Speaking in Geneva, she said her office has received reports that militants rounded up and killed Iraqi soldiers as well as 17 civilians in a single street in Mosul.
Her office heard of 'summary executions and extrajudicial killings' after militants overran Iraqi cities and towns, the statement said.
However, despite the bloodshed, some Iraqis are already returning to Mosul after Islamist insurgents promised them cheap fuel and food, restored power and water, and the removal of barricades.
Many appeared excited to return, swelled with sectarian pride with the quick advances of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, who Sunni Muslims regard as liberators.
But elsewhere, tens of thousands of others, mainly Shiites, are piling into refugee camps as they flee the deadliest conflict to grip Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-UK invasion.
In this image posted on a militant Twitter account, militants parade down a main road in Mosul, Iraq. Days after Iraq's second-largest city fell to al-Qaida-inspired fighters, some Iraqis are already returning to Mosul
Another Twitter picture shows ISIS militants removing part of the soil barrier on the Iraq-Syria borders and moving through it as they consolidate the mini-state they have carved out between the neighbouring countries
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