By Aref Youssef
The Interior Ministry has discharged some 1200 policemen in Iraq's Anbar province for abandoning their posts amid violence that has swept the province since last December.
"The police command decided to sack 1200 policemen for failing to report for duty when provincial authorities called them up in January during clashes with militants affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant [ISIL]," Anbar deputy council head Faleh al-Essawi told Anadolu Agency on Monday.
Hundreds of policemen abandoned their posts in the predominantly-Sunni province after ISIL militants took over large swathes of Ramadi and Fallujah, Anbar's two main cities.
The Iraqi army has been waging a major operation in Anbar since last December with the stated aim of flushing out Al-Qaeda-linked militants.
Many local Sunni tribes opposed to Iraq's Shiite-dominated government, however, continue to voice anger over the operation's mounting civilian death toll.
According to government estimates, hundreds have been killed and injured since violence first broke out in Ramadi and Fallujah late last year.
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