Iraq auditing airport contracts over suspected armed group funding, state news agency says

BAGHDAD — The Federal Commission of Integrity, Iraq’s main anti-corruption body, is auditing Transport Ministry and airport contracts and has found manipulation suspected of funding armed groups, a source told the state-run Iraqi News Agency on Wednesday.

The commission “uncovered manipulation suspected of being linked to the financing of outlaw armed groups,” said the source, whom INA described only as having knowledge of the matter. The manipulation in the contracts served the groups’ economic interests, the source said.

The source did not name the groups, the contracts or the companies involved. The source also gave no value and did not say when the manipulation took place. Neither the commission nor the Transport Ministry had commented publicly.

The report follows an administrative order, seen by 964media and reported Saturday, showing that the General Company for Airports and Air Navigation, the Transport Ministry’s state airports company, demoted the former head of its airports department. The order named him as Hussein Ali Hussein Jaber and referred him and the department’s assistant director for legal affairs to the commission over lease contracts for VIP lounges, electronic gates, fast-track passenger services and offices at Baghdad International Airport, as well as other contracts at the Baghdad and Basra airports.

That order did not mention armed groups, and it is not clear whether the two cases are connected.

On June 14, Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi canceled a project worth about $764 million to rebuild and run Baghdad International Airport over suspected corruption, INA reported at the time, citing a government source.

Zaidi’s government has pursued an anti-corruption campaign since the June 28 Dawn Strike raids on current and former officials in Baghdad’s Green Zone. On Oct. 29, Azm Alliance leader and lawmaker Muthanna al-Samarrai was sentenced to six years in prison over refinery contracts.

Iran-aligned factions have pushed back against the campaign. In July, a spokesperson for Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada accused the government of pursuing corruption cases selectively.

The government has also set a June 30, 2027, deadline for bringing weapons outside state control under state authority. The Coordination Framework, the ruling Shiite alliance, endorsed the deadline on Oct. 19 and authorized the government to take whatever measures are needed to meet it.