Will Iraq’s oil smuggling crackdown disarm militias without a conflict?

详细摘要

Iraq has dismantled an alleged smuggling ring in Jurf al-Sakhar which could squeeze militias and avert internal strife

The Iraqi government has launched a sweeping anticorruption crackdown centred on the Jurf al-Sakhar area, a stronghold of Iran-linked militias near Baghdad.

The campaign has seen the dismissal and judicial referral of nine senior officials accused of corruption. It has also led to the sacking of top security directors, the Babil police chief and the director of the Oil Pipelines Company at the Ministry of Oil.

While officially framed as an initiative to protect public funds from a widespread smuggling network, analysts believe the move is a highly calculated strategy to sever the financial arteries of armed factions that refuse to integrate into the state apparatus.

At the heart of this confrontation is Jurf al-Sakhar – also known as Jurf al-Nasr – a stronghold of the Kataib Hezbollah group, believed to have close links to Iran.

For over a decade, Jurf al-Nasr has allegedly harboured illicit oil refineries. An intelligence report released last week claimed that the area was at the centre of a major corruption scheme involving oil revenues and Iran-linked militias.

That led Iraq’s Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi to launch the crackdown, with an Iraqi security committee entering Jurf al-Nasr on Friday to investigate, following the arrest of other officials accused of graft. The formerly Sunni-majority area has long been considered outside government control since Iraqi militias seized the area a decade ago.

Michael Knights, head of MENA research at Horizon Engage, told Al Jazeera that Jurf al-Sakhar’s value is deeply rooted in recent developments in Iraq, when Iran-linked militias used the campaign against ISIL (ISIS) to stamp their authority in the country.

“Iran-backed militias illegally seized and renamed Jurf al-Sakr when they conducted sectarian cleansing of the Sunni residents in the area in 2014, under the cover of the anti-Daesh [ISIL] war,” Knights explained.

The town, about 60km (37 miles) from Baghdad, is at a critical point near the Shia pilgrimage route between the…

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