Dismissals comply with probe that uncovered unlawful oil refineries and smuggling in a area run by Kataib Hezbollah, a pro-Iranian armed group.
Revealed On 15 Nov 2026
Iraq’s Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has dismissed 9 senior safety officers over an alleged oil smuggling operation within the Jurf al-Nasr space, a stronghold of the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah group.
Al-Zaidi chaired an emergency safety assembly to evaluation the findings of a committee investigating smuggling in Jurf al-Nasr, Babil province, navy spokesperson Sabah al-Numan instructed the Iraqi Information Company (INA).
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The transfer follows an investigation that uncovered unlawful oil refineries and proof of manipulation linked to the smuggling actions.
“In gentle of the investigation’s findings, [the prime minister] ordered that each one people accused of involvement in oil smuggling operations be referred to the judiciary,” al-Numan mentioned.
The prime minister “additionally ordered the dismissal” of 9 officers, together with safety and intelligence officers in Babil province, an Inside Ministry commander, and the director of the Oil Pipelines Firm on the Ministry of Oil, he mentioned.
The police chief of Babil province was amongst these dismissed.
Iran-aligned armed group
Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-aligned paramilitary group and one among Iraq’s most closely armed factions, has just lately issued a number of sharp statements in opposition to the prime minister, threatening his authorities and accusing him of corruption.
Senior Iraqi politicians beforehand instructed the AFP information company that al-Zaidi had repeatedly mentioned he was able to confront teams refusing to disarm.
Al Jazeera’s Peter Smith, reporting from Baghdad, mentioned earlier Iraqi governments had been cautious to not tackle the problem of an alleged oil smuggling community value as much as $30m month-to-month.
“This space had successfully been run as a state inside a state till now,” Smith mentioned. “However that appears to have modified, with Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi saying that no inch of Iraq might be allowed to have oil smuggling operations like this.”
Two strategic oil pipelines working via the south of the nation, simply south of Baghdad, “had successfully been tapped into”, Smith mentioned, citing a leaked intelligence report. “Oil was being siphoned off, stolen, after which bought on the black market in an operation value tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} each month.”
On Wednesday, the INA reported that “intelligence paperwork” containing satellite tv for pc photographs “confirmed crude oil and oil-derivatives smuggling operations carried out by an armed faction” in Jurf al-Nasr, accusing an unnamed group of tapping right into a pipeline there.
Al-Numan mentioned the investigating committee “confirmed the accuracy” of the data.
Akeel Abbas, a senior non-resident fellow on the Iraq Initiative throughout the Atlantic Council, instructed Al Jazeera that oil smuggling by numerous political factions and armed teams “is widespread in Iraq” as a result of “business fairly than political or strategic” positive factors.
Abbas mentioned the most recent crackdown has extra to do with “militia disarmament”.
“The prime minister cleverly determined to border it as anticorruption. That’s the reason a number of days in the past, there was a report leaked by the federal government about this operation,” he mentioned.
The prime minister desires to “minimize off the monetary lifeline to this specific group that has been so resistant” to the federal government’s “militia disarmament” initiatives, he added.
