Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki fired four of his top security officers on Tuesday for abandoning their "professional and military duty" a week after the fall of the northwest city of Mosul to Sunni militants, the government said.

Top officers, including Lieutenant General Mehdi Sabah Gharawi, the top commander for Nineveh province where Sunni fighters have gained ground, were fired because they "failed to fulfill their professional and military duties", according to a government statement read out on state television.

One of the commanders, Hidayat Abdulraheem, had fled a battle and would be referred to the military court to be tried in absentia, it said.