ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraqi Parliament Speaker Haibat al-Halbousi ordered the formation of a temporary parliamentary committee in Baghdad on Wednesday to investigate intelligence reports on alleged oil smuggling routes through an Iran-backed faction stronghold.
The parliamentary order was prompted after Alhurra, a US-funded Arabic-language news outlet operated by the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN), published a report on Monday detailing a 19-page classified Interior Ministry assessment prepared in October that uncovered millions of dollars in oil theft in northern Babil province.
According to the MBN article, theft operations in Jurf al-Nasr—an area 60 kilometers southwest of Baghdad, renamed from Jurf al-Sakhar after being retaken from the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014—began in 2021 and involve drilling into federal oil ministry pipelines.
Halbousi held a meeting on Wednesday with the heads of parliamentary committees to discuss “an intelligence technical report regarding oil smuggling within the Jurf al-Nasr area,” on information on the route of Iraqi oil smuggling from fields in Kirkuk and the Kurdistan Region through Iran to Afghanistan, as well as the recent targeting of the Khor Mor field, read an official statement from the Iraqi House of Representatives.
Following the meeting, the state-run Iraqi News Agency (INA) published a document confirming Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi also ordered an executive probe into the smuggling, signed on Tuesday.
Jurf al-Nasr is a small town south of Baghdad that is controlled by Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed paramilitary group. An Interior Ministry source previously told MBN that the group holds "complete control" over the zone, where more than 120,000 people were displaced and about 6,000 families remain barred from returning.
Investigators tracked five years of satellite imagery and cross-referenced databases to identify four sites where oil from breached pipelines moves through makeshift refineries into underground pits covered by white metal structures, which "are used to store oil instead of using conventional oil storage facilities visible above ground.”
The MBN report stated that tanker trucks with a capacity of 36,000 liters transport the oil along three routes toward Baghdad and international highways, passing through official checkpoints.
While daytime satellite images captured up to 21 trucks at a single site in October 2022, the report noted that "the available data indicate continuous loading operations at night," causing "substantial losses and clear damage to the country’s oil sector.”
The assessment recommended taking legal action against "negligent officials" at the State Company for Oil Pipelines and the State Company for Oil Products Distribution for "failing to take the necessary measures to address these breaches from 2021 to the present."
"Oil smuggling operations are still ongoing in Jurf al-Nasr," the report concluded, "because the area is under the control and protection of one of the armed factions.
