Iraq's parliament has impeached Defence Minister Khaled al-Obeidi over corruption allegations, removing him from office as the army gears up for an assault on Islamic State's de facto capital, Mosul.
Parliament voted 142-102 on Thursday to withdraw confidence from Obeidi, two lawmakers said, after questioning him this month about weapons contracts. He denies the corruption allegations.
Obeidi, a Sunni Muslim ally of Shi'ite Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, had spearheaded the military campaign to retake territory that the ultra-hardline Sunni Islamic State 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 Islamic State onslaught under the previous government led by Nuri al-Maliki, who was also acting defence minister.
Iraq's military is slowly being rebuilt with the support of a US-led coalition. The army and Shi'ite militias have retaken many areas back from Islamic State, but the biggest test will be the battle for Mosul.
Thirteen years after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein and sparked sectarian violence, major OPEC oil producer Iraq ranks 161st out of 168 nations in Transparency International's corruption index.
