Iraq PM clears way for military trials over Ramadi loss

The news broke just hours after an Iraqi parliamentary panel called for former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and 30 other officials to face trial for their involvement in the fall of Mosul to the Islamic State group last summer.

Ramadi, the capital of western Anbar province, fell to the Islamist militants in May in the most significant setback for Iraqi security forces in almost a year.

“No one is above the law and questioning by the people, and the judiciary will punish those” responsible, Juburi said in a statement.

Al-Maliki will be implicated in the report, along with more than two dozen other officials, including army chief Babikar Zebari and Atheel al-Nujaifi, the governor of Ninevah province, where Mosul is located, according to a lawmaker who declined to be identified as he is not authorized to brief the media.

– Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi Sunday slashed his cabinet from 33 members to 22, days after parliament approved a slate of reforms he proposed in the wake of protests over corruption and poor public services.

The fall of Ramadi was widely considered as the Iraqi army’s worst defeat since ISIL swept through north Iraq last June.

Abadi was selected as prime minister in part because he lacked strong ties to the armed groups that fought a sectarian civil war during the U.S. occupation, and was therefore seen as better able to promote conciliation than his predecessor Maliki.

Multiple Iraqi divisions collapsed during the initial assault in the north, in some cases abandoning weapons and other equipment which the jihadists then used to further their drive.

Parliament still has to approve al-Abadi’s latest round of reforms before they can be put in place.

Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Baghdad, said the statement said that all military officials with the rank of officer or above, who left their Ramadi posts without permission, will be court-martialed.

It is unclear whether the scrapped ministries – human rights and the ministries of state for women s affairs and for provincial and parliamentary affairs – will continue in another form, or will be done away with altogether.

It merges the Ministry of Science and Technology with the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, and the Health Ministry with the Ministry of Environment.