Iraq to sack 376 security officers for alleged Baath links

An Iraqi body responsible for purging Saddam Hussein's Baath party members from government jobs on Wednesday issued a list of 376 Iraqi police, army and intelligence officers to be fired over links to the outlawed Baath party.

Ali al-Lami, executive director of the Accountability and Justice Commission, said that the list included 193 officers from the Interior Ministry, including 10 high-ranking police officers.

It also included 58 officers from the Defense Ministry, 10 of whom held senior posts, including Aboud Qanber, former commander of the Baghdad Operations.

It is responsible for Baghdad security since early 2007 after the U.S. "surge" plan that brought further American soldiers to quell insurgency and sectarian strife which erupted in the country after the 2003 invasion.

The list also featured 125 officers from the national intelligence agency, including 10 high-ranking officers who were in charge of political assassinations and tracking down the opposition, al-Lami said.

Earlier in the month, top commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, said that his country had "clear intelligence " that al-Lami had close ties to Iran's elite al-Quds forces.

Al-Lami's Shiite-dominated commission sparked a row last month when his commission submitted a list of over 500 candidates barred from running in the country's March elections, including Salah al- Mutlak and Dhafir al-Ani, the two leading Sunni secular politicians.

Source: Xinhua