Iraq military denies media reports Tal Afar fell to ISIL

In a press conference, Atta said “Tal Afar district is surrounded by the terrorists from 360 Degree and there are different choices for the security leaders to attack, but the withdrawal from Tal Afar district is to plan for the attacks rather than being defeated.”

Tal Afar, a strategic town in northern Iraq, fell to Sunni militants who also took control of the town’s airport on Monday.

"The town of Tal Afar and the airport ... are completely under the control of the militants," a local official told Agence France-Presse. The government disputed accounts from witnesses who said Iraqi security forces abandoned the area. But Lt. Gen. Qassem Atta, security spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, added “even if we withdrew from Tal Afar or any other area, this does not mean that this is a defeat."

Tal Afar sits along a highway that connects with Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, which is also under militant control, with Syria, making it a strategic town in the battle between Iraqi security forces and the al-Qaeda offshoot, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIL.