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| Iraq |
| Sacked police chief says local council members are "thieves" |
| 2008-08-13 |
| (VOI) -- Sacked Diala police chief Ghanim al-Qurayshi said on Tuesday that he was discharged from his post after he cut the number of bodyguards allocated to the city's local council members, whom he branded as "thieves." "I've cut the bodyguards of the Diala local council members because they exceeded the allowed number," Maj. General Qurayshi told Aswat al-Iraq -- Voices of Iraq -- (VOI). A spokesman for the Iraqi Defense Ministry, Maj. General Muhammad al-Aaskari, had told VOI on Monday that the Diala local council decided to sack Qurayshi, adding the Interior Ministry and the Operation Bashaer al-Kheir (Promise of Good) command in the province did not interfere in the decision. Meanwhile, most districts in Diala saw massive demonstrations protesting the decision to discharge Quryashi from his post as tribal chiefs and notables held news conferences in which they rejected the decision and expressed support for Qurayshi. Iraqi security forces, since the end of last July, had launched a military operation codenamed Bashaer al-Kheir to track down gunmen of al-Qaeda network who had been flushed out of the western Iraq predominantly Sunni province of al-Anbar by tribal fighters there. On Monday the Iraqi Interior Ministry denied that it has sacked Qurayshi from his post, noting Qurayshi "is practicing his daily duties as normal." "The news reports about discharging Qurayshi were groundless and incorrect," Abdelkareem Khalaf, the head of the interior ministry's National Command Center (NDC), said in statements to VOI. Awf Rahoumi, the deputy governor of Diala province, had earlier told VOI that Qurayshi was sacked, mentioning no reasons for the reported measure. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 "Thieves" is kind of harsh. Maybe they are just old school Chicago Democrats. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2008-08-13 09:26 |