The Iraqi Armed Forces are close to the city of Mosul, but political intrigues can interfere Iraqis to liberate the city.
Photo: Getty Images / Wathiq Khuzaie
Returning control of the city of Al-Kayyara and ridding it of terrorists, the Iraqi Army practically has gotten “a key” to the city of Mosul, which is considered a capital of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, the Izvestiya newspaper reported, citing an official representative of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, Ahmad Jamal.
“The city of Al-Kayyara has a strategic importance. In fact, it is a key to Mosul. The IS terrorists used it [the city] as an important logistics center. In this context, the return of control over Al-Kayyara was one of the priority goals,” Jamal said.
According to the Iraqi representative, this is still difficult to identify the timing of the Mosul liberation. Planning of the operation will need a lot of time. The situation is complicated by the fact that the terrorists will almost certainly use local civilians as a human shield.
The Iraqi forces drove IS terrorists from Al-Kayyara, located 350 km north of Baghdad and 70 km south of Mosul, on the night of August 26. According to one of the heads of the Iraq’s Counter Terrorism Service, Abdul Ghani al-Asadi, about 250 terrorists were killed during the fighting.
Earlier, the country’s Army regained control of the nearby military airfield. As it is expected, it will be used for carrying out air strikes on IS terrorists in Mosul.
At the same time, despite the fact that the Iraqi Army demonstrates progress on the battlefield, the country’s parliament passed a vote of no confidence to Defense Minister Khaled al-Obaidi. Lawmakers accused him of fraud at the conclusion of defense contracts. One hundred forty two MPs out of 253 voted for the resignation.
It is remarkable that a number of strategic settlements, including Ramadi and Fallujah, was liberated of the IS by the Iraqi Forces with this Minister of Defense.
According to director of the Iraqi National Center for the Study Strategy and Security, Muatazz Muhi Abdel Hamid, the resignation of al-Obaidi was a shock for Iraqi people. This is the “blatant example of corruptionists’ victory,” he said.
Abdel Hamid noted that al-Obaidi not only personally led a number of major operations to liberate territories from terrorists, but also tried to root out corruption in the ranks of the Iraqi Armed Forces.
“Apparently, al-Obeidi paid for this, became a victim of corrupt officials of the Parliament, many of whom really illegally profiting from arms deals, in contrast to the head of the department. Considering the fact that the interior minister resigned in the beginning of July, now the Security Forces practically do not have a head. And this may accordingly impact on the fight against terrorism,” the expert concluded.