BAGHDAD-Iraqi forces have retaken the key town of Qayara, near a major air base south of Mosul, from Islamic State, according to a statement from the Iraqi prime minister’s office.
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“We control all parts of the town and managed, in very limited time, to root out Daesh [Islamic State]”, said Lieutenant General Riyadh Jalal Tawfik, who heads the ground forces.
He also indicated that engineering units were working to clean the city of explosives left behind by the jihadists before fleeing.
The operation against Qayyarah was launched on Tuesday and led by Iraq’s elite counter-terrorism service (CTS). They had entered Wednesday in the city center and secured several districts.
“Our heroic forces made a great victory today on their way to liberate Mosul after they defeated the terrorist gangs of Daaish (IS group)”.
Abbas Kadhim, a senior policy fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, said on Twitter that Obeidi’s removal set a welcome precedent against corruption, but he acknowledged the decision was partly political “score settling”. Trying to stay on the right side of corruption allegations, politicians have been trading accusations in recent months, arriving at parliament with large files allegedly documenting corrupt activity of rivals.
Brett McGurk, the USA envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition, said this month that the row between al-Obeidi and Jabouri would not derail the Mosul offensive.
Officers have said the push into Qayyarah was coordinated with small groups of armed residents opposed to IS inside the town.
“I spared no effort in building the army. whilst striving to fight the corruption and nepotism that led Iraq to lose 40 percent of its territory in 2014, displaced millions of people, threatened its shrines as well as its beloved capital Baghdad”, Obeidi said.
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Jassem Hanoun, an Iraqi political and security analyst, disagreed and argued the timing could not be worse.
