QAYYARAH, IRAQ // Iraqi forces backed by coalition air strikes on Thursday pushed ISIL militants from Qayyarah, a northern town considered strategic for any future offensive against the extremists’ last stronghold of Mosul.
“We control all parts of the town and managed, in very limited time, to root out Daesh,” Lt Gen Riyadh Jalal Tawfik, who commands Iraq’s ground forces, said in Qayyarah.
The commander said engineering units were now clearing the town, lies about 60 kilometres south of Mosul, of unexploded ordnance and booby traps.
Prime minister Haider Al Abadi hailed what he said was a key step towards reclaiming Mosul – ISIL’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,” Mr Al Abadi 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.
Meanwhile, Iraqi lawmakers on Thursday voted to impeach defence minister Khaled Al Obeidi over corruption allegations, MPs said.
Parliament voted 142-102 to withdraw confidence from Mr Al Obeidi, two lawmakers said, after questioning him this month about weapons contracts. He denies the corruption allegations.
Mr Al Obeidi, a Sunni Muslim ally of Mr Al Abadi, had spearheaded the military campaign to retake territory that the ultra-hardline Sunni ISIL 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 ISIL onslaught under the previous government led by Nuri Al Maliki, who was also acting defence minister.
The shock impeachment is the latest development in a bitter feud that erupted earlier this month between Mr Al Obeidi and parliament speaker Salim Al Juburi, the highest-ranking Sunni politician in Iraq.
* Agence France-Presse and Reuters
