Premier slashes Cabinet as part of reform effort

BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered his Cabinet reduced Sunday from 33 members to just 22, consolidating the body as part of a major reform push in response to mass protests against corruption and poor governance.

The decision, announced by his office, would eliminate four ministries, including those of human rights and women’s affairs, and consolidate others.

The move follows a far-reaching reform plan approved by parliament last week that eliminated the country’s three vice presidencies and three deputy prime ministers. The plan also reduced the budget for the personal bodyguards of senior officials and transferred it to the interior and defense ministries.

The reform plan cut positions held by a number of prominent Iraqi politicians, including Nouri al-Maliki, who was prime minister of Iraq for eight years before he was pushed out last August in response to growing outrage over the fall of Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, to the Islamic State group.

Iraqis have held major protests in recent weeks against corruption and poor government services, focusing in particular on power outages that have made a recent heat wave even more unbearable.

Iraq is struggling to roll back the Islamic State group, which swept across the border from Syria last summer and seized about a third of the country.

The militants attacked Iraqi troops Sunday outside the militant-held city of Fallujah, killing at least 17 soldiers. Four suicide attackers drove explosives-laden military vehicles into government barricades outside the city west of Baghdad, setting off heavy clashes, officials said.