Iraq's military spokesman says the prime minister has removed the chief of the army's ground forces and the head of the federal police from their posts.
Lieutenant General Qassim al-Mussawi says Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki signed the papers July 5 to retire Lieutenant General Ali Ghaidan, commander of the army's ground forces, and Lieutenant General Mohsen al-Kaabi, the federal police chief.
Al-Mussawi says both men leave their jobs with their pensions. No replacements have been named.
The dismissals are part of al-Maliki's shakeup of the security forces after their near collapse in the face of a sweeping militant offensive led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Last month, al-Maliki retired three generals who had been deployed in the north and ordered legal proceedings against them.
