- Iraq's Prime Minister fired the country's top security forces Tuesday as bombs and violence enveloped the country for another day, according to Reuters and Agence France Presse reports.
- Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki fired four of his top security officers on the grounds that they abandoned their "professional and military duty" in terms of allowing the city of Mosul to fall into the control of the jihadist group, the Islamist State of Iraq and the Levant.
The statement, announcing the dismissal of top officer Lieutenant General Mehdi Sabah Ghawari and Hidayat Abdulraheem, along with two others, was read out loud on state television Tuesday.
While Baghdad announced the dismissal, bombings throughout Iraq left at least 21 people dead on Tuesday and 18 bodies of security personnel were discovered north of the capital, according to an AFP report.
In the most deadliest attack Tuesday, a car bomb exploded in a Shiite Muslim neighborhood north of Baghdad leaving 11 people dead and more than 20 wounded according to medical and security officials. Five other bombings were also reported Tuesday in the capital, leaving six more dead and 14 others wounded. In Fallujah, shelling attacks left another four killed and three more wounded.
The bodies of the 18 security personnel were discovered by Iraqi police forces east of the city of Samarra. All of the bodies had gunshot marks in their heads and chests. It is not yet clear if the shots were due to fighting or from a mass execution act.
