Many of those seeking shelter were Shiite Turkmen from villages outside Iraq's second-largest city of Mosul, overrun earlier this month by fighters led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the Sunni extremist group that has seized large swaths of Iraq and seeks to carve out a purist Islamic enclave across both sides of the Syria-Iraq border.
While many villagers appeared to have been granted access by daybreak, hundreds of Shiite refugees were still hoping to be let in but were facing delays because they lacked sponsors on the other side.
One of the refugees, who gave only her nickname of Umm Alaa, fearing retribution, said she and hundreds of others with her had left their village of Quba and another nearby hamlet during the militants' initial assault on June 10 to seek shelter in nearby communities that were then attacked Wednesday.
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"They will kill every Shiite man, and they will burn every Shiite house. Nobody has stayed in Quba. Every single Shiite has left," he said, echoing the fears of many interviewed today.
Elsewhere, pro-government forces on Wednesday battled Sunni militants threatening a major military air base in Balad, north of Baghdad, military officials said.
The militants had advanced into the nearby town of Yathrib, just five kilometers (three miles) from the former US base known as Camp Anaconda. The officials insisted the base was not in immediate danger of falling into the hands of the militants.