Iraq’s new education minister resigns after allegations of IS relative surface
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The newly-appointed Iraqi Education Minister Shaima’ al-Hayali resigned on Saturday after allegations her elder brother has ties with the Islamic State (IS) arose on social media.
On Monday, lawmakers voted in Hayali as the minister of education and Nawfal Musa Baha as immigration and displacement minister. The former is the only female minister in Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi’s cabinet.
Hayali resigned after Iraqi social media pages circulated videos and photos users claimed confirmed her brother, Laith al-Hayali, became a member of the terror organization after the fall of Mosul.
An academic from Mosul, Hayali ran for the post of Minister of Education with the support of the Sunni parliamentary coalition led by Khamis al-Khanjar, who is allied with the al-Bina bloc, which is, in turn, led by Hadi al-Amiri, a commander with the Hashd al-Shaabi militias.
Hayali said in a statement that IS had forced everyone to work for them, “uttering threats” against those who refused once they seized Mosul in 2014. She argued her brother was among those pressured to hold his official post under the self-proclaimed Caliphate’s rule.
According to Iraqi sources, Laith was director of the water department in Nineveh in 2012 but was later dismissed from his post, and then joined IS in 2014.
Iraqi sites published a video recording, broadcast by IS’s propaganda website, showing a man who is believed to be the minister’s brother talking about US bombardments on bridges in Mosul.
The minister asserted said her brother was “forced” to make the statement and claimed he had no “involvement in carrying arms or helping them (IS) kill any Iraqi.”
“My brother’s condition is like that of tens of thousands of cases, where people were forced to remain in their jobs under the authority of an occupying power,” and “as defined by international law, and no one who has been subjected to this power against his will can be punished solely for having to stay [under their control].”
Hayali proclaimed her own innocence, denouncing “the people of any terrorist or criminal group who has tainted their hand with the blood of Iraqis.” She later confirmed on Facebook that she had resigned.
Abdul-Mahdi, who presented the cabinet to parliament, is yet to make a statement on the issue. The troubled PM is already facing a difficult task in forming his cabinet as a tug of war between the two leading blocs for the security posts continue.
The PM also has two more ministers against whom allegations of corruption and links to the Baath party, which is constitutionally banned, have been leveled
Editing by Nadia Riva