A classified intelligence report prepared by Iraq’s Interior Ministry and obtained by MBN through government sources has revealed oil theft operations worth millions of dollars in Jurf al-Sakhar, in northern Babil province. The area is controlled by Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia designated as a terrorist organization by the United States.
The 19-page report, classified “Top Secret,” said the theft operations began in 2021 and have continued to this day. They involve drilling holes into federal Oil Ministry pipelines that run through the district, which Iraqi authorities renamed Jurf al-Nasr after retaking it from ISIS in 2014.
The report, prepared by the ministry’s Federal Intelligence and Investigations Agency in October, was submitted to the ministry’s undersecretary with a recommendation that it be presented to Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi.
Jurf al-Nasr, where the theft is taking place, lies about 60 kilometers southwest of Baghdad.
An Interior Ministry source previously told MBN that the group has “complete control” over the area and that no one has been allowed to enter it over the past decade.
More than 120,000 people, most of them members of the al-Janabi tribe, were displaced. About 6,000 families are still barred from returning, according to the Ministry of Migration and Displacement.
Local and Western reports have described the area as a site used to store missiles and drones with Iranian support. Several locations there have been repeatedly targeted in airstrikes, most recently in February and March 2026, following the outbreak of the war with Iran.
Investigators tracked satellite imagery of the area over five years and cross-referenced it with classified information and databases.
Jurf al-Nasr and possible tanker-truck routes to Baghdad, as detailed in the intelligence report.
Two Houses, Palm Trees and a White Metal Roof
According to the report, oil from the breached pipelines moves through small refineries and improvised storage sites and leaves the area on tanker trucks. The trucks take three routes toward Baghdad and international highways, blending in with legitimate traffic, and some pass through official checkpoints.
In satellite images taken in 2024, investigators identified two houses surrounded by several palm trees. Subsequent monitoring showed that the site had been covered with a white metal roof and that tanker trucks with a capacity of 36,000 liters had begun visiting the location.
The site sits 342 meters from the nearest oil pipeline, near a point the report believes was breached.
The surveillance data show that no tanker trucks were present at the site in February 2024. By September 2025, three had appeared there. The report identifies the location as the “first pipeline breach site” and says it was “active” in 2025 and 2026.
The first site in February 2024: Two houses and palm trees before the area was covered.
The first site in September 2025: A metal roof and tanker trucks near the building.
The first site in June 2026.
The first site in July 2026.
An Oil-Stained Pit and 21 Tanker Trucks in a Single Day
About one kilometer from the first location, the report identified a second site that was older and more active: a pit in the ground surrounded by oil stains, with tanker trucks parked nearby.
Activity there dates to June 2021, when four tanker trucks appeared. The number peaked at 21 in a single satellite image taken on October 30, 2022.
The report says loading operations at the site “declined in subsequent years,” with three tanker trucks spotted in both October 2025 and July 2026.
The second site in June 2021: The first sighting of tanker trucks near the pit.
The second site in October 2021.
The second site in November 2021: Seven tanker trucks.
The second site on October 30, 2022: 21 tanker trucks in a single image.
The second site in October 2025.
The second site in July 2026.
A Small Refinery Gives Way to Underground Storage Tanks
A third site lies farther away, 11 kilometers from the Baghdad-Babil highway.
In October 2021, the site was still under construction. About a year later, in October 2022, nine tanker trucks appeared parked at a facility that the report describes as “something resembling a small oil refinery with limited refining capacity.”
Activity continued, with six to eight tanker trucks appearing in images through July 2026.
The report’s most significant finding concerns storage: underground pits covered by white metal structures, which “are used to store oil instead of using conventional oil storage facilities visible above ground.”
The arrangement suggests an effort to conceal the volume of stored oil from aerial surveillance.
The third site in October 2021: The land under construction.
The third site in October 2022: A small refinery and nine tanker trucks.
The third site in January 2024.
The third site in January 2025.
A fourth facility, 700 meters from the pipeline, was under construction in October 2022. Once it was finished, 14 tanker trucks were spotted nearby in January 2025 and again in July 2026, with the oil pits covered by a white metal structure.
The fourth site in October 2022: An oil facility under construction.
The fourth site in January 2025: 14 tanker trucks after the facility’s completion.
The fourth site in July 2026.
The report notes that while the photographs of the many tanker trucks were taken in the daytime, “the available data indicate continuous loading operations at night.” That suggests the numbers of trucks could be significantly higher than those visible in the images. The report adds that the operation is causing “substantial losses and clear damage to the country’s oil sector.”
Map of the reported intelligence findings: Loading sites, refineries and the suspected pipeline breach location.
Map showing the coordinates identified by the report along the oil pipelines in Jurf al-Nasr.
Recommendations Target the Oil Ministry
The report recommends the Oil Ministry take 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.”
It also recommends checking the Oil Ministry’s pressure-anomaly records for the Jurf al-Nasr pipelines against the dates of the satellite images, and taking legal action against those encroaching on the pipelines and building facilities that “caused damage to public funds.”
None of the recommendations names Kataib Hezbollah.
“Oil smuggling operations are still ongoing in Jurf al-Nasr,” the report concludes, “because the area is under the control and protection of one of the armed factions.”
Adapted and translated from the original Arabic.
