Iraq's prime minister sacks nine senior officials over oil smuggling in a pro-Iran stronghold

Iraq's Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has dismissed nine senior security officials over an alleged oil smuggling operation in the Jurf al-Nasr area, a stronghold of the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah group.

Military spokesperson Sabah al-Numan told the Iraqi News Agency (INA) that al-Zaidi chaired an emergency security meeting to review the findings of a committee investigating smuggling in Jurf al-Nasr, in Babil province. The investigation uncovered illegal oil refineries and evidence of manipulation linked to the smuggling activities.

Al-Numan said that, in light of the investigation's findings, the prime minister ordered that all individuals accused of involvement in oil smuggling operations be referred to the judiciary. He also ordered the dismissal of the nine officials.

Those dismissed include security and intelligence officers in Babil province, an Interior Ministry commander, and the director of the Oil Pipelines Company at the Ministry of Oil. The police chief of Babil province was among those dismissed.

Kataib Hezbollah is an Iran-aligned paramilitary group and one of Iraq's most heavily armed factions. It has recently issued several sharp statements against the prime minister, threatening his government and accusing him of corruption.

Senior Iraqi politicians previously told the AFP news agency that al-Zaidi had repeatedly said he was ready to confront groups refusing to disarm.

Al Jazeera's Peter Smith, reporting from Baghdad, said previous Iraqi governments had been careful not to address the issue of an alleged oil smuggling network worth up to $30 million a month. He said the area had effectively been run as a state within a state until now.

Citing a leaked intelligence report, Smith said two strategic oil pipelines running through the south of the country, just south of Baghdad, had effectively been tapped into. Oil was being siphoned off, stolen, and then sold on the black market in an operation worth tens of millions of dollars every month.

On Wednesday, the INA reported that intelligence documents containing satellite images showed crude oil and oil-derivatives smuggling operations carried out by an armed faction in Jurf al-Nasr, accusing an unnamed group of tapping into a pipeline there. Al-Numan said the investigating committee confirmed the accuracy of that information.

Akeel Abbas, a senior non-resident fellow at the Iraq Initiative within the Atlantic Council, told Al Jazeera that oil smuggling by various political factions and armed groups is common in Iraq, driven by commercial rather than political or strategic gains.

Abbas said the latest crackdown has more to do with militia disarmament. He said the prime minister cleverly decided to frame it as anticorruption, which is why a report about the operation was leaked by the government a few days ago.

Abbas added that the prime minister wants to cut off the financial lifeline to this particular group, which has been so resistant to the government's militia disarmament initiatives.