The Iraqi judiciary announced Thursday that the interior and defense ministers, under former Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, had been summoned to investigate the killing of protesters during the ongoing popular protests since the beginning of last October.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi issued a directive regarding the phenomenon of fugitive weapons.

The Supreme Judicial Council said - in a statement issued after the meeting of the council’s president, Faiq Zaidan, National Security Adviser Qassem Al-Araji, the head of the National Security Service Abdul Ghani Al-Asadi, and the head of the Counter-Terrorism Service, Abdul Wahab Al-Saadi, that the judicial investigative body on the Rusafa side in Baghdad summoned both of my ministers Defense Najah Al-Shammari and the Interior Ministry, Yassin Al-Yasiri, in the previous government, to seek clarification from them regarding information related to the investigation of the deaths and injuries of demonstrators and security forces personnel during the protests.

The statement added that the investigative body also issued a number of arrest warrants against a number of employees of the Ministries of Defense and Interior, in addition to arresting officers pending investigations and issuing judgments against others.

Al-Shammari and Al-Yasiri are the most senior officials to be summoned to investigate the violence that accompanied the protests.

Last May, Mustafa Al-Kazemi's government announced the formation of committees to investigate the violence that left 565 protesters and security forces dead during the protests, according to an official census.

Al-Kazemi has repeatedly pledged to prosecute those involved in the violence, but no accused has yet been convicted.

The protests began in October 2019 and succeeded in toppling the previous government headed by Abdul Mahdi, and they are still continuing in a limited and sporadic manner in the country.

Al-Kazemi believes that uncontrolled weapons and tribal disputes pose a real threat to society (Associated Press)

The fugitive weapon

In another development, the Prime Minister directed to end the phenomenon of fugitive weapons and impose the prestige of the state.

During a visit to the army's Joint Operations Command headquarters in Baghdad, Al-Kazemi said that his government had inherited a heavy legacy of tribal conflicts and loose weapons, which pose a real threat to society and threaten its members, as well as obstruct the country's reconstruction and development efforts.

He directed the leaders of the security services to follow up on this file, and joint coordination between the security forces, to work with all available efforts to end it, impose the prestige of the state, and confront everything that threatens the country's security and stability.

Al-Kazemi said that he is betting on the security forces to provide security, in a way that strengthens the citizen's confidence in the state, and makes him feel reassured.

This directive comes after a noticeable increase in the frequency of missile and other IED attacks targeting the US embassy in Baghdad, and military bases that include US diplomats and soldiers, in addition to the supplies of the international coalition led by Washington.

The attacks have generally escalated since the assassination of the Iranian Quds Force commander, Qassem Soleimani, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy head of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Authority, in a US air strike near Baghdad airport on January 3.