On Saturday, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi announced a decision to fire 9 officials from their positions, including the police chief of the Babil governorate and the commander of the popular mobilization forces there. He ordered to refer those accused of involvement in oil smuggling operations in the Juraf al-Nasr area to the judicial system, after an investigative committee confirmed the validity of the intelligence information regarding oil smuggling operations and the presence of refineries in the area.
The spokesman for the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi armed forces, Sabah al-Numan, said that the decisions were made during an emergency security meeting chaired by al-Zaidi, which was dedicated to reviewing the results of the report of the committee responsible for investigating the oil smuggling case in the Juraf al-Nasr area in Moft Babil.
Al-Numan explained that the committee presented the results of its investigations, which confirm the correctness of the information contained in the report of the Federal Intelligence and Investigation Agency regarding oil smuggling operations and the existence of oil refineries, in addition to monitoring cases of sabotage in this case.
Al-Zaidi ordered that the commanders of the operations, the police commanders in the districts and the managers of the security and intelligence services will bear full responsibility for all oil smuggling cases that fall within their areas of responsibility.