Defence minister sacked as Mosul battle looms
SETBACK: Parliament voted 142-102 to withdraw confidence from Obeidi after questioning him this month about weapons contracts
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s parliament impeached Defence Minister Khaled al Obeidi on Thursday over corruption allegations, removing him from office as the army gears up for an assault on IS’s de facto capital, Mosul.
Parliament voted 142-102 to withdraw confidence from Obeidi, two lawmakers said, after questioning him this month about weapons contracts. He denies the corruption allegations.
Obeidi, an ally of Prime Minister Haider al Abadi, had spearheaded the military campaign to retake territory that the ultra-hardline IS group seized in 2014.
Lawmakers have accused the Defence Ministry of wasting billions of dollars and weakening the armed forces to the point where they collapsed in 2014 in the face of the IS onslaught under the previous government led by Nuri al Maliki, who was also acting defence minister.
Iraq’s military is slowly being rebuilt with the support of a US-led coalition. The army and militias have retaken many areas back from IS, but the biggest test will be the battle for Mosul.
Thirteen years after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein and sparked sectarian violence, major Opec oil producer Iraq ranks 161st out of 168 nations in Transparency International’s corruption index.
Meanwhile, Iraqi forces backed by coalition air strikes on Thursday pushed the IS group from Qayyarah, a northern town considered strategic for any future offensive against their last stronghold of Mosul.
“We control all parts of the town and managed, in very limited time, to root out Daesh (IS),” Lieutenant General Ri- yadh Jalal Tawfik, who commands Iraq’s ground forces, told an AFP reporter in Qayyarah.
The commander said engineering units were now clearing the town, which lies about 60 kilometres south of Mosul, of unexploded ordnance and booby traps.
Prime Minister Haider al Abadi issued a statement hailing what he said was a key step towards reclaiming Mosul, IS’s de facto Iraq capital and the country’s second city.
“Our heroic forces achieved a big victory, an important step towards the liberation of Mosul,” Abadi said.
“I present my congratulations to the Iraqi people for the liberation of the strategic town of Qayyarah and neighbouring areas,” he said.
The operation to retake Qayyarah was launched on Tuesday and led by Iraq’s elite counter-terrorism service.
Iraqi forces had already recaptured a nearby air field and Qayyarah is expected to be become one of the main launchpads for an assault on Mosul in the coming weeks or months.